IRS announces FET refunds on Long Distance & Cellular Phone services

May 26, 2006

The Treasury is conceding defeat in its battle to collect a long-distance telephone tax enacted to pay for the Spanish-American War, paving the way for business taxpayers to get refunds, plus interest, going back three years (statute of limitations). The "telephone tax," which will be terminated July 31, imposed a 3% surcharge on consumers based on distance of the call.

Who are affected by this:

All corporations in U.S. are entitled to refund of all federal excises taxes paid on long distance and cellular telephone usage from March 2003 through July 2006 provided they have documentation to prove their claim. Companies could potentially collect thousands of dollars based on the amount they paid during this time. 

Claims for refunds must be filed with corporate 2006 tax returns.  Companies need to Audit their bills and find this specific tax paid during the time frame to be eligible for refunds. This one time opportunity to get credits for past three years can be filed only once on 2006 tax returns.

How can Amtel help:

Amtel can help you in identifying those specific taxes in your Telecom services billing. It is very cumbersome to segregate portions of federal excise tax pertaining to long distance and cellular usage from flat rated services. With our unique Technology platform & processes we can find the FET paid by your company on phone services from your past 3 years of invoices. We would also validate the discontinuation of future FET collections on your billing after July 31, 2006.

Amtel has been helping clients nation-wide by Auditing & collecting refunds on their Telecom services using our Software platform & Professional services.