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I also itemized, and instead of getting $30, I got $95 (my cell phone bill has been approx $100/month forever, so I was paying about $2.15/month for the tax)...
Well worth it!
I also itemized, and instead of getting $30, I got $95 (my cell phone bill has been approx $100/month forever, so I was paying about $2.15/month for the tax)...
Well worth it!
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-17967-100x100.png\")
I did this; my deductions are 0, so I'd have gotten nothing. I couldn't get copies of my bills, (eff you AT&T -> Cingular -> at&t) but I knew it was at least a dollar a month, so that's what I guessed.
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It's not a deduction -- it's a credit. So even if you take the standard deduction, you can still get a credit.
That said, if you don't have copies of the bills, you're probably SOL. The IRS form even states that telephone companies are not required to provide you with extra copies of your bills. My guess is that most, if not all phone companies decided to refuse to provide extra bills because they would get a million requests this year (easier and cheaper to have a blanket \"no\" policy).
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If you're someone who has them readily available and keeps excellent records, here's your chance to get some benefit from that skill. I salute you, as for me the time/benefit equation doesn't work out. I went standard.
On the other hand, if you have a barebones landline, use voip for long distance (they did not collect the tax) and do not use the cellphones for long distance, then the standard deduction will be more (at least in my case...)
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Yeah I tried this was one of the best ideas, I was trying to get the information from, Cingular, but sadly they don't give it up that easily. So here is a bit of information for people that haven't done this (filed taxes) I would like to let you know that one of my friends did it through T-Mobile and he got all the information and all he had to do was transfer it over to the form. As far as he told me he had to insist a few but nothing more. So good luck to anyone that is hoping to this.
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Nice gut, lady.
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I did the same thing, thank god for online billing and keeping old bills. I ended up wtih 89 bucks as a single person instead of the standard $30.
Sprint/Nextel earns major points. I cancelled my Sprint PCS service in 2004 and threw out my old bills. In order to calculate my credit, I requested copies, and they sent full reprints of two years of bills within a week.
The IRS sites an example of a $246 refund for a single, sole proprietor with less than $25k of gross receipts, $20 in local service, $50/month of personal long distance and $150/month of bundled service and cell phone. http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=161506,00.html
Check out http://www.refundsforgood.org/business_refund.php -- there's a free 8913 \"Wizard\" there that will help you fill out the form very quickly and easily.
![\"user-pic\"](\"http://consumerist.com/assets_c/userpics/userpic-73239-100x100.png\")
Yeah, I'm single and I think the standard refund for singles is $30. But since I'm a packrat (working on that), I had phone bills for the past 5 years. The credit is for taxes after 2/28/03, so I sat down, itemized everything, and got just over $100 back. It took a couple of hours, but for an extra $75, it was worth it.