[RTC List] Tax Relief In Eureka

[William Van Hefner]

All,

For those of you who don't live or operate a business within the City of
Eureka, this will probably not be of any interest to you. However, if you
do, this might just save you some money.

I was going over my recent Sprint bill when I noticed that they are still
charging me 3% of my bill for the City of Eureka's Utility User Tax. Last
November, citizen's of Eureka voted to repeal this tax. I found out from
the city Finance Director that the end to the tax doesn't actually take
effect until April though.

One interesting thing about this tax is the fact that although there is a
$1,000 per year/per location cap on the tax, the utility companies do NOT
keep track of the total amount you pay. This tax is applied to many
different services, including electric/gas utilities (PG&E), local phone
service, cable TV service, cellular phone service, Internet connectivity,
satellite TV and probably a few others as well. I'm guessing that there
are likely more than a few businesses in the city that have unknowingly
overpaid the $1,000 per year tax cap for quite some time.

According to a recent Grand Jury report, the city itself has absolutely no
way of tracking what anyone pays for these taxes, because the utility
companies are not required to produce an accounting of exactly who the
money comes from. So, it is up to the customer to keep track of how much
they pay. I have no clue as to who one would go to in order to get a
refund of taxes they overpaid, or how far back you should be able to go in
regards to a refund, but for those of you who spend a ton of money on
things like electricity, Internet connectivity and telephone service, it
may well be worth checking into. 3% may not sound like much, but it adds
up to several hundred dollars per year to me, and my business only has a
single employee.


-- 
William Van Hefner
President - Vantek Communications, Inc.
e-mail: vantek at humboldtonline.com