So what will you do with the whopping 3% savings you’ll be getting on your cell phone? Howzabout spending it on even better phones?

As of Tuesday, August 1st, the 3% “federal excise tax” placed on phone bills and long-distance carriers doesn’t exist The tax was imposed in 1898 (back when owning a phone was a luxury) to fund the Spanish-American War. The U.S. government kept the tax after the war; according to USA Today it generated about $89 billion for Uncle Sam between 1966 & 2001. You’ll get some of that tax money back, too; people and businesses will be able to file for a special tax refund for all the long-distance calls they’ve made since March 1, 2003. If you don’t have the phone records to back it up, you can seek a standard refund amount. Exactly how much that will be, and how to apply for it, hasn’t been established yet.

Now, how do you put these savings to good use? Some possibilities are:

If you prefer the pay-as-you-go plans, the Boost Mobile i450 is nice-looking phone with a lot of features. If none of these are your thing, feel free to browse the cell phone page and see what you like.

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This entry was posted by A.Rehak on Friday, August 4th, 2006 at 4:06 pm