(A) There is imposed a tax upon every person in the city, other than the city and any telephone corporation, using intrastate and/or interstate telephone communication services in the city. The tax imposed by this section shall be at the rate of 5% of the charges made for the services and shall be paid by the person paying for the services.
(B) As used in this section, the term
CHARGES shall not include charges for services paid for by inserting coins in coin-operated telephones except that where such coin-operated telephone service is furnished for a guaranteed amount, the amounts paid under the guarantee plus any fixed monthly or periodic charge shall be included in the base for computing the amount of tax due; nor shall the term CHARGES include charges for any type of service or equipment furnished by a service supplier subject to public utilities regulation during any period in which the same or similar services or equipment are also available for sale or lease from persons other than a service supplier subject to public utilities regulation; nor shall the term TELEPHONE COMMUNICATION SERVICES include land mobile services or maritime mobile services as defined in Section 2.1 of Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations, as such section existed on June 1, 1985. The term TELEPHONE COMMUNICATION SERVICE refers to that service which provides access to a telephone system, and the privilege of telephone quality communication with substantially all persons having telephone stations which are part of the telephone system.
(C) Notwithstanding the provisions of division (A) of this section, the tax imposed under this section shall not be imposed upon any person for using intrastate and/or interstate telephone communication services to the extent that the amounts paid for such services are exempt from or not subject to the tax imposed under Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code Division 2, Part 20 or the tax imposed under Section 4251 of the Internal Revenue Code, as those provisions existed and were implemented by the relevant regulatory authorities on August 21, 1985.
(D) The telephone users' tax imposed by this section is intended to, and does apply to all charges billed to a telephone account having a situs in the city, irrespective of whether a particular communication service originates and/or terminates within the city. The situs shall be the service address, if it exists; otherwise, the billing address.
(E) The tax imposed by this section shall be collected from the service user by the person providing the intrastate telephone communication services, or the person receiving payment for the services. The amount of the tax collected in one month shall be remitted to the Tax Administrator on or before the last day of the following month; or at the option of the person required to collect and remit the tax, an estimated amount of tax collected, measured by the tax billed in the previous month, shall be remitted to the Tax Administrator on or before the last day of each month.
('83 Code, § 3.32.080) (Ord. 908, passed - -85; Am. Ord. 922, passed - -86; Am. Ord. 1053, passed - -91; Am. Ord. 1292, passed 8-16-06)