American Consumer Institute Applauds Passage of Wireless Tax Fairness Act

Encourages Senate to take swift action to protect wireless consumers

WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives today overwhelmingly approved the Wireless Tax Fairness Act of 2011 – legislation that will protect consumers with a five-year ban on new state and local government-imposed wireless taxes and fees. The following quote should be attributed to Steve Pociask, president of the American Consumer Institute Center for Citizen Research:

“I applaud the House for moving forward with HR 1002, the Wireless Tax Fairness Act, to make sure America’s consumers have a five-year reprieve from additional excessive state and local cell phone taxes.  In some states, a quarter of monthly wireless service costs are due to state and local taxes and fees.  These cell phone taxes are an increasingly troubling trend that adversely affect younger and lower-income Americans.

“Public policies need to stop taxing what we should be encouraging.  High taxes on information technologies stunts economic investment and impedes job creation, thereby hurting consumers and small businesses.  The American Consumer Institute looks forward to the Senate taking up this legislation quickly, passing it, and making sure American consumers have a wireless tax reprieve for the upcoming the holiday shopping season.”

About ACI

The American Consumer Institute Center for Citizen Research is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational and research institute founded on the belief that consumers’ interests are not satisfactorily represented by the wide variety of advocacy and consumer organizations that often represent small subsets of consumers and special interests; ignore distant, collateral and unintended consequences of importance to consumers; and too often mirror advocates’ political views rather than an empirical analysis of consumers’ economic welfare.

 

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