Telephone Excise Tax Refund

[bige1030]

This is quite the nice surprise for us during tax time!

http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=164032,00.html

"The Telephone Excise Tax Refund (TETR) is a one-time payment available on your 2006 federal income tax return. It is designed to refund previously collected long distance telephone taxes. Individuals, businesses and tax-exempt organizations are eligible to request it.
...
Individuals

Taxpayers have a choice: a standard refund amount between $30 and $60, based on the total number of exemptions claimed on their 2006 tax return, to eliminate the need to locate old phone bills; or they can locate those bills and use the actual amount."

[SinkingFast]

Due to prepping to file BK, we happen to have all of our phone bills for 2006. I'll have to add it up and see if the excise tax exceeds the $60 max std deduction.

[AMISLANDER]

Can we take this exemption even if we included our telephone bill in the bk?

[bige1030]

If you paid the tax any time after February 28, 2003 and before August 1, 2006, it appears that you can claim the refund. The only way I would see a problem is if you discharged the entirety of any long distance or bundled service charges that you incurred during that period.

Of course, if you claim the refund using actual charges instead of the standard amount, there might be some issues with that.