[February 14, 2010] Bills would shift fee collection to retailers Tweet RICHMOND, Feb 14, 2010 (The Free Lance-Star - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- If you use prepaid cell phones, you may soon see a change in the fee charged for E-911 services. Bills in the General Assembly would shift the responsibility for collecting that fee from carriers to retailers, and one bill would clarify that prepaid-phone sellers must collect and remit to the state that fee. E-911 is what allows dispatchers, when you call 911, to know your address and where you are, a process that's more complicated for cell phones. The fee is 75 cents per transaction -- and for people with landlines or cell phones that aren't prepaid, it's just added to the monthly bill. But prepaid cell phones are more of a problem. The big carriers, such as Verizon, are tired of dealing with the fee because they rarely come in contact with the customer -- you can buy prepaid phones at 7-Eleven and Walmart; you don't have to go into a wireless store. Those carriers didn't worry too much about it when prepaid cell services were a tiny sliver of the market. But now they're about 20 percent of the market, said Julie Rautio, a lobbyist working for Verizon on the issue. The carriers want retailers who sell the phones to deal with charging the E-911 fee, arguing that they're the ones who see the customer. The fee also gets charged every time someone with a prepaid phone buys new blocks of minutes. Retailers say that would be a huge hassle, because they'd have to keep track of and remit to the state all those fees. They're against the bills. "You're shifting a burden of collection from a small number of carriers to what may be thousands of retailers," said Nicole Riley, representing the Virginia Retail Merchants Association. Retailers also say poorer people could be hurt by the bills, because they may buy prepaid cellular minutes more frequently, in smaller blocks, and would pay the fee each time. Two bills -- from Del. Bill Janis, R-Goochland, and Sen. Dick Saslaw, D-Fairfax -- would charge a 50-cent fee for E-911 on prepaid phones and allow retailers to keep 5 percent as reimbursement for the changes they'll have to make to collect and remit the fee. The state tax department also would have to establish some new procedures to collect the fee that way, and would treat it much like a sales tax. The bills, if passed, would take effect next January. Saslaw's bill is due for a committee hearing Monday; Janis' has gone through committee and will be voted on in the House on Monday. Also at issue are some prepaid-phone companies -- not the big carriers, but companies that bundle and resell air time, such as TracFone -- that possibly are not charging or remitting the fees. A bill from Sen. John Watkins, R-Chesterfield, addresses just that issue. Watkins' bill is due for a committee hearing tomorrow. Chelyen Davis Email: [email protected] To see more of The Free Lance-Star or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://fredericksburg.com/flshome. Copyright (c) 2010, The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, Va. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]