I’m not an accountant, but I have discussed this issue with many other people who do know more than I do. A company has a right to collect sales tax if they are doing business in that state - i.e. have an office in the state. For example, if you were to purchase something from The JC Penney catalog, you would have to pay local sales tax as they have businesses set up in every US State. Several STS reps pointed out that they collect sales tax on the cards they sell to representatives. It is conceivable that with such a large organization, that they have the right to collect tax from everyone. If they sell general merchandise, they should be collecting sales tax, but prepaid phonecards are a different issue.
Collecting tax on phonecards is an interesting topic, something that I have discussed before. Here goes the explanation that I have heard. If a card is sold at the tariffed rate, then taxes are already considered within that rate and no additional taxes should be levied. If they are sold above the tariffed rate, then the difference between the rate that the card was sold for and the tariffed rate should be taxed. In other words, if a $5 card was tariffed at 25 cents per minute, but sold by a dealer at 40 cents per minute ($8), then $3 should be taxed at the local rate, assuming the company had the right to collect sales tax from the state it was ordered from. Confused? It is a very confusing issue.
Now I leave it up to my STS fan club to show to me (and thus to everyone who reads this list) why STS is charging sales tax on its prepaid phonecards. It appears to me that tax should not be charged on these cards anymore than they should be if you were to purchase from any retail outlet.
The concert was a complete sellout.
The "Cruisin' America" phone card will feature 15 minutes of prepaid phone time, plus, at no additional cost, an attached scratch/match sweepstakes card that offers beautifully restored classic Corvettes plus $250,000 in "Cruisin' America Cash" to each of three lucky sweepstakes winners per quarter.
The initial 1st quarter printing of 20,000,000 cards represents gross sales, (ed. Note - 20 Million cards - Wow!) when fully distributed, of $65,000,000.00 to the company.
"With Delco Remy America, the National Corvette Museum of Bowling Green, Ky., Frontier Communications International Inc., America's 5th largest long distance company, and Catalyst Communications working together to create visibility for the program and retail outlets for the product, we will be the largest and most exciting adventure in America," said Carl Smith, chairman of Catalyst Communications.
CONTACT:
Catalyst Communications Inc. 941/923-1949, 941/921-2821 FAX
From: Ray Jeschon
Oreo Phonecard Check out http://www.nabisco.com/oreophonecard/ to get a preview of the new oreo shaped phonecard. It is not available yet, but they will take your e-mail address and notify you when they do come in. 10,000 individually numbered cards available, and they cost $5 for a 10 minute card.
From: Samira Abdulhadi
From: Dave Gilroy
From: Michael T. Hersey
You can purchase a special edition $100 Mobil Go! card complete with AT&T True Rewards logo on it and get $10 of Free Gas added to the card after you've used the first $50 of the card.
There is no limit to how many of these you can purchase but you must be an AT&T True Rewards customer.
To call and order one, Call Mobil Go! Card at 1-800-730-TOGO (1-800-730-8646).
From: Seth Marlowe
The trial was launched with a public event in a midtown Kingston shopping center. It was held in front of the Santa's Village display set up at the mall for the Christmas season, and concluded with a man in a Santa Claus suit making a purchase with an Exact card.
The banks said nearly 600 Kingston merchants have signed on for the trial. Initially, the cards will be available free, although in future there will probably be a signup fee. Customers will be able to charge up their cards with a maximum of $200 at a time at 39 load devices around the city.
Ron Hodges, vice-president of card and direct services at the Toronto- Dominion Bank, said at the launch event that the card will help replace the "fistful of cash" that people often accumulate in their pockets as the day goes on. The banks are touting Exact as a way to avoid this buildup of loose change -- a benefit that may appeal more to Canadians than some others since this country has eliminated its $1 bill and is phasing out its $2 bill, so that the smallest paper banknote will soon be worth C$5 (about US$3.70).
Tim Hockey, vice-president of core banking services at Canada Trust, said the card will be good for merchants as well, because it will speed up small transactions and will automatically deposit the day's Exact receipts to the merchant's bank account by telephone at the end of the day.
Exact backers claim a transaction can be completed in about three seconds with the card. "You can barely open the cash drawer in three seconds," Hockey said. Newsbytes notes that at the public demonstration, Santa Claus's purchase seemed to take a little more than three seconds, though it was clearly faster than a credit-card transaction.
Steve Phillips, a Toronto-Dominion representative, told Newsbytes that when the system is rolled out nationally, the banks probably will not use a separate Exact card but will build the enabling chip into a card that can also serve for automatic teller machine transactions and possibly as a credit card.
Phillips acknowledged that the Exact card is similar to the Mondex card backed by a British-based consortium, but he said it is simpler to use because it has fewer features -- Exact does not support multiple currencies, for instance -- and is meant to supplement existing credit and debit cards by replacing change in smaller transactions.
"Virtually all transactions under $10 are made with cash," Hodges said. Ron McKerlie, the Bank of Montreal's vice-president of electronic banking services, claimed the Exact trial in Kingston is the first trial of a publicly available reloadable electronic cash card in North America.
(19961210/Press Contact: Joe Barbera, Bank of Montreal, 416-927-2740; Ralph Marrance, Canada Tust, 416-361-4642; Cathy Bertini, Toronto- Dominion Bank, 416-982-2469/Reported By Newsbytes News Network:
That’s all for now,
Alan
2) Direct e-mail. Send a message to: phoneline@cardmall.com
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