Looking to fill the NANOG US Thanksgiving void (as a Canadian in the USA, I have some spare time): In San Jose, an upstream is charging us this 5% tax: http://www2.csjfinance.org/UUT.asp I think it's bogus, because the tax "applies to intrastate telephone communications only" and, consistent with the long-standing FCC 128 tariff, Internet circuits are regarded has being interstate and not intrastate. But the upstream says:
Our tax advisors at Deloitte have confirmed that we are required to charge the San Jose User Utility Tax shown on your invoice. The Internet Tax Freedom Act exemption is not applicable to our services as this exemption is for internet access only, not bandwidth usage.
I think the last sentence is not relevant, but even if it is relevant, is it correct? I note that wikipedia says:
This law bars federal, state and local governments from taxing Internet access and from imposing discriminatory Internet-only taxes such as bit taxes, BANDWIDTH TAXES, and email taxes.
I know, IANAL, YANAL, Wiki is not a lawyer... but I figure someone else must have previously dealt with this (or something very close). Thanks, -mark