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CTC still wants 2.5-percent fee
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Posted on May 05 2005
Commonwealth Telecommunications Commission chair Norman Tenorio said the agency remains in favor of the existing 2.5-percent fee being charged on the gross income of telecommunication companies as its funding source.
He said that CTC was “shocked” with the introduction of a House bill that aims to revert the 2.5-percent fee to .5 percent.
“We were surprised and shocked that the Legislature went ahead to introduce that. We still need the 2.5 percent. Otherwise, we can’t run the commission with what we have right now,” he said.
The bill, which aimed to provide a sunset provision to the 2.5 percent charge on the annual gross revenues on telecommunication companies was recently defeated at the House of Representatives.
The 2.5 percent provision is embodied in Public Law 14-53, which just passed the Legislature last year and signed into law in January this year.
P.L. 14-53 provides funding for CTC by allowing the latter to charge telecommunication companies 2.5 percent of their annual gross revenues.
Before this, CTC’s charge was .5 percent, which amounts to about $80,000. Under the 2.5 percent charge, this would bring the amount being levied on telecom firms to somewhere between $500,000 to $900,000.
