Qwest bill adds Internet line tax

OLYMPIA —When David Anderson opened his September Qwest bill recently, he was startled to see that the price of his DSL Internet line had jumped by nearly $3.

He’s not alone. Throughout Washington State, people who get their Internet service from Qwest experienced the same thing: their DSL service, which wasn’t taxed for much of the summer, has been taxed for the past couple of months.

There is good news, however. According to Qwest spokeswoman Shasha Richardson, that state tax on DSL service will soon disappear.

“It’s about to go,” said Richardson.

The federal “Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act” will take effect Nov. 2, she said, and will strip the state tax from the company’s high-speed Internet service. People will begin seeing the change on their bills late next month, she said.

The change can be hard to spot. To figure out why his bill had increased, Anderson combed a long list of taxes and fees on his combined phone and DSL bill: the federal universal service fund, federal excise tax, state and local 911 fees, a fund for disability programs and another fee to help poor people get phone lines.

“I wasn’t a finance major for nothing,” he joked.

It’s equally complex for Qwest, according to Richardson. She said the company collects taxes for 7,000 jurisdictions in 14 states.

The change in federal law, she said, won’t apply to the other taxes on Qwest customers’ bills.

“There will still be fees like the universal service fund,” she said, “but the Washington state sales tax (on Internet service) should be going away.”