TAX FILE: Suit attacks phone tax

Several large companies have recently won federal appeals court rulings that the 3% federal telephone tax is illegal when applied to unmetered long-distance calls. Now a class action suit seeks to win refunds for small customers. On February 10, Reginald Krasney, three other individuals, and a small business sued in the Court of Federal Claims on behalf of “themselves and all other similarly situated taxpayers.” Five days later, Treasury Secretary John Snow testified to Congress that if the administration loses another pending appeals court case, “I would think that the time to bring that to an end would be upon us.”