California Has A Commie Plan To Tax Text Messages

Apparently, not enough things are being taxed in California, so the state has come with another way to steal even more money from its citizens. California has now formulated a plan to tax text messages.

California state regulators are working on a plan to charge cell phone users a fee for text messaging, all in the name of collecting taxpayer money to pay for programs to make phone service cheaper to low-income residents, the San Jose Mercury News reported. There’s an ongoing quest in California to make sure the state confiscated through theft and extortion as much money as possible.

No one yet knows how much cell phone users would be charged, but the Mercury News says the fee would “likely would be billed as a flat surcharge per customer — one of those irksome fees at the bottom of your wireless bill — not a fee per text.” Nonetheless, it will be a tax and extorted.

According to The Daily Wire, business groups, including the Bay Area Council, California Chamber of Commerce, and Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and others opposing the idea, calculated the new charges for wireless consumers could total about $44.5 million a year. But they add that under the regulators’ proposal the charge could be applied retroactively for five years — which they call “an alarming precedent” — and could amount to a bill of more than $220 million for already heavily taxed California consumers.

A dense California Public Utilities Commission report attempted to argue the case for the texting surcharge. The report says the Public Purpose Program budget has climbed from $670 million in 2011 to $998 million last year. But the telecommunications industry revenues that fund the program have fallen from $16.5 billion in 2011 to $11.3 billion in 2017, it said. “This is unsustainable over time,” the report says, arguing that adding surcharges on text messaging will increase the revenue base that funds programs that help low-income Californians afford phone service.

The California Public Utilities Commission is set to vote on this new theft tax surcharge next month but added that some business councils object to the plan. “It’s a dumb idea,” Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council business group, told the paper. “This is how conversations take place in this day and age, and it’s almost like saying there should be a tax on the conversations we have.”

This article has been contributed by SHTF Plan. Visit www.SHTFplan.com for alternative news, commentary and preparedness info.