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Measure G Telephone Users Tax Update City of Long Beach Ordinance - Majority Approval Required Pass: 84,503 / 59.92% Yes votes ...... 56,521 / 40.08% No votes
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Index of all Measures |
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Information shown below: Impartial Analysis | | ||||
Without raising current tax rates, shall an ordinance be adopted to help preserve funding for critical City services, including police and fire protection, paramedic and emergency response, street maintenance, parks, youth services, and libraries, by updating the telephone users tax to include new and evolving technologies so that all taxpayers are treated equally regardless of technology used?
Background A UUT is a tax levied on each user of a utility within the City’s boundaries. Since 1970 the City has imposed a telephone users’ tax on persons using telephone service in the City. The tax is based on the telephone user’s monthly usage, collected by the telephone provider and conveyed to the City. UUT revenues are paid into the City’s general fund to finance such services as police, fire, street repair, parks, libraries and recreation programs. The current tax rate is 5% of the charges billed. Measure G will not increase the 5% tax rate. In past years, the City of Long Beach, like most California cities with telephone UUTs, relied on definitions provided by federal law to describe which specific telephone services are covered by the City’s UUT. Recent interpretation of these federal law definitions has changed. This changed interpretation created uncertainty in the application and scope of the City’s UUT. As a result, the Long Beach City Council adopted an Ordinance amending its UUT, which addressed these problems. This measure would ratify that Ordinance and thereby update the City’s UUT law by eliminating references to the federal law definitions. It would also further amend the Ordinance to assure that the UUT will be applicable to emerging and rapidly changing communications technologies. Measure G
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Official Information
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