WASHINGTON-The cellular industry and leaders of state and local government groups took to the road last week with their efforts to pass legislation to mandate that wireless subscribers be taxed based on a single address.
This time, they took their message before the House Judiciary commercial and administrative law subcommittee. This is the third time Thomas Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, and company have appeared before a congressional hearing.
“The airwaves cannot be expected to respect political boundaries, and Americans are mobile people,” said Wheeler.
A coalition of CTIA and state and local governments appeared before the subcommittee to support the Wireless Telecommunications Sourcing and Privacy Act, which will base taxes charged for mobile-phone use on the billing address of the consumer.
The bill is important, coalition members say, because of the 55,000 taxing jurisdictions in the country, 36,000 tax mobile-phone use.
The appearance before the commercial and administrative law subcommittee was necessitated by a jurisdictional dispute in the House, said Steven K. Berry, CTIA senior vice president for congressional affairs. The Senate Judiciary Committee did not assert jurisdiction on the issue.
“We will follow this legislation wherever the circuitous route takes us … We don’t have an ability to [influence] jurisdiction,” Berry said.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the subcommittee, did not mince words when asked about the jurisdictional dispute.
“For 40 years, the Commerce Committee has been trying to steal jurisdiction. This subcommittee has jurisdiction over interstate taxation matters … No one should have talked to the Commerce Committee,” Nadler said.
The bill sponsored by Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.) also includes provisions protecting against wireless eavesdropping and requesting a study by congressional auditors of the regulatory fees charged by the Federal Communications Commission.
Nadler said these provisions were put in the bill so the Commerce Committee would have jurisdiction. The subcommittee was drafting a bill, which it expected to introduce late last week, that would strip the privacy and FCC provisions and amend the interstate taxation laws rather than communications law.
The Judiciary Committee expects to send a bill to the House floor shortly, maybe as early as this week.
When asked whether having two competing bills would slow a bill that everyone seems to like, Nadler said the House Judiciary Committee bill would be the one on the floor and that the Commerce Committee would not object.
“It’s indefensible. The Commerce [Committee] will have sheepish looks on their faces, but they will vote for the bill,” Nadler said.
