Wireless association CTIA is the latest group to support new legislation attempting to repeal the 20 year old cell phone tax. It is supposed to be levied on the personal use of employer provided cell phones, but there is a lot of confusion about how these taxes should be calculated. As such, several groups have spoken out against the law, including the IRS Commissioner.
"The alternatives [to legislation] proposed by the IRS are either incomplete or inadequate solutions that would continue to subject employees and employers to onerous call log requirements," CTIA President Steve Largent said.
CTIA counts among its members the country's largest wireless companies – Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp., and T-Mobile USA. Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone PLC. T-Mobile is a unit of Deutsche Telekom.
The IRS is collecting comments on the cell phone-tax law. In June, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman asked Congress to repeal it, calling it "obsolete."
Mr. Shulman's statement signaled a quick turnabout for the IRS, which had earlier proposed that employers assign 25% of an employee's annual phone expenses as a taxable benefit. Under that scenario, a worker in the 28% tax bracket, whose wireless device costs the company $1,500 a year, could see $105 in additional federal income tax.