Subject


Section 12 of Chapter 2012-70, Laws of Florida, creates a Communications Services Tax Working Group. The purpose of the working group is to study and report on tax issues related to the sale of communications services. A report of the working group is due to the Governor, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives by February 1, 2013. The working group held its first meeting on June 11, 2012, and held additional meetings on July 25, 2012, and August 21, 2012. The working group is continuing to gather information and will be considering options to provide to policymakers for use in making important tax law decisions. The working group is tasked with the responsibility to: a) Review national and state tax policies relating to the communications industry; b) Review the historical amount of tax revenue that has been generated by the communications services taxes imposed or administered under Chapter 202, Florida Statutes, for the purposes of determining the effect that laws passed in the past 5 years have had on declining revenues; c) Review the extent to which this revenue has been relied on to secure bonded indebtedness; d) Review the fairness of the state’s communications tax laws and the administrative burdens it contains, including whether the applicability of the tax laws is reasonably clear to communications services providers, retailers, customers, local government entities and state administrators; e) Identify options for streamlining the administrative system; and f) Identify options that remove competitive advantages within the industry as it relates to the state’s tax structure without unduly reducing revenue to local governments.