USA collects telephone tax to fight Spain

THE USA has been collecting money through a tax on telephones for more than 100 years to fight a war against the Spanish.

According to the National Libertarian Party website, here, in 1889, the US was at war with the Spanish and found itself caught short of a few bob.

It levied a three per cent tax on a new technology that no-one really used call the telephone.

The tax was only going to last a year, but although the war ended the government kept collecting its phone tax.

Attempts to repeal the bill were vetoed by President Clinton in 2000. Why? Well the federal telecommunications excise tax raised about $6bn in 2004. Now the Congress is having another go. H.R. 1898 to repeal the tax on telephone and other communications services is being backed by Republican Gary G. Miller of California, and has been cosponsored by 39 other congressmen.

However it is starting to seem that there are moves afoot to keep the tax going, indeed the Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation issued an opinion in January, saying that the tax could be expanded to apply to wireless Internet and data connections.

Obviously the government is short of cash again, but we are a little concerned that the US is sort of honour bound to attack Spain, which is one of its NATO allies. Otherwise it would have been misleading the American people and collected millions of bucks for a war it never intended to have. Governments don't do that sort of thing. µ