Phone tax? The answer is no
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Re “Mayor seeks to put phone tax on ballot,” Oct. 2
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s effort to preserve the utility users tax on consumer phone bills is regretfully misguided.
This regressive tax is nothing more than a government cash cow that has only facilitated wasteful spending at City Hall. According to a key policy study released this summer by the San Diego Institute for Policy Research, more than 140 utility user taxes in California rake in more than $1.7 billion a year for local governments to spend and disburse as they please.
Los Angeles residents already pay a costly county utility phone tax, as well as more than half a dozen state phone taxes that finance an array of broken and unaccountable government programs.
Now is the time for more phone tax relief in California, not more tax pain.
Vince Vasquez
San Diego
The writer is the senior policy analyst at the San Diego Institute for Policy Research.
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