What the Heck Are All These Charges Part#1
Posted by Joseph Brochin
How do I tell what all these charges are on my bill and if they are normal?
Well in a previous blog post we talked about cramming.
We talked about carefully reviewing the telephone bill for any charges that you the consumer do not understand.
This review, as stated in that post, also applies to pager and cell phone bills as well.
The problem is most consumers are not familiar with what charges should be on a phone bill.
The FCC does a very good job speaking of this in their website and provides a lot of detail.
I will display the traditional charges for the landline phone bill below. Please visit the FCC site as it gives much more information to include; Scam Alerts, Wireless phone information, accessibility information, and legal rights of the consumer.
911 – This charge is imposed by local governments to help pay for emergency services such as fire and rescue.
Federal Excise Tax – This is a three percent tax mandated by the federal government (not the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)). It is imposed on all telecommunications services, including local, long distance and wireless services.
(Federal) Subscriber Line Charge – This charge covers the costs of the local phone network. This charge may appear as “FCC Charge for Network Access,” “Federal Line Cost Charge,” “Interstate Access Charge,” “Federal Access Charge,” “Interstate Single Line Charge,” “Customer Line Charge” or “FCC-Approved Customer Line Charge.” The FCC sets the maximum allowable Federal Subscriber Line Charge. This is not a government charge or tax, and it does not end up in the U.S. treasury.
Local Number Portability (LNP) Charge – The FCC allows local telephone companies to recover certain costs for providing telephone number portability to its customers. Telephone number portability allows residential and business customers to retain, at the same location, their existing local telephone numbers when switching from one local telephone service provider to another. The LNP Charge is a fixed, monthly charge. Local telephone companies may continue to assess this charge on their customers’ telephone bills for five years from the date the local telephone company first began itemizing the charge on the bill. This charge is not a tax.
State & Local Municipal Tax – This charge is imposed by state, local, and municipal governments on goods and services. It may also appear as a “gross receipts” tax in some states.
(State) Subscriber Line Charge – This charge is mandated by some states’ public service or utility commissions to compensate the local phone company for part of the cost of providing local telephone lines associated with state services, such as intrastate long distance and local exchange service.
Telecommunications Relay Services Charge – This state charge helps to pay for the relay center that transmits and translates calls for hearing-impaired and speech-impaired people.
In the next post we will discuss even more charges to look for that are to be expected on your bill.
