By Johna Till Johnson, Network World, 09/05/05

The federal government is desperately out of date on telecom taxation. Not only are some of today's taxes rooted in the politics of the 1800s, but the entire telecom tax structure is based on a set of assumptions that no longer apply.

The biggest of these is that telecom services represent an inexhaustible cash cow: Users won't mind paying a little more on their phone bills, and telcos won't mind cutting just a hair deeper into their profit margins. This has led to a scenario in which cash-strapped regulators find it easier to lard communications services with "extra fees" than fight the uphill political battle of raising taxes.