A. There is imposed a tax (herein called the “telephone users tax”) on the amounts paid for any intrastate, interstate and/or international telephone communication services by every person in the City other than a telephone corporation, using such services. The tax imposed by this section shall be at the rate of two and forty hundredths percent (2.40%) of the charges made for such services and shall be paid by the person paying for such 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 where such coin-operated service is furnished for a guaranteed amount, in which event the amounts paid under such guarantee plus any fixed monthly or other 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 supplied subject to public utility regulations 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 utility regulation; nor shall the words “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 January 1, 1970. The term “telephone communication services” 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 such telephone system. The telephone users tax 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.
C. The telephone users tax shall be collected from the service user by 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 bill in the previous month, shall be remitted to the Tax Administrator on or before the last day of each month.
D. Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection A of this section, the telephone users tax shall not be imposed upon any person for using intrastate telephone communication services to the extent that the amounts paid for such services are exempt from or not subject to the tax imposed under Part 20 (commencing with Section 41001) of Division 2 of the California Revenue and Taxation Code, or the tax imposed under Section 4251 of the Internal Revenue Code.
(Ord. 1888, (part), 2001; Ord. 1600, 1992; Ord. 1534, (part), 1990)