Telephone tax hike unfair to Bell users

On Aug. 2, Wheeling stated that the Village has recently sent letters to the Illinois Legislature on the topic of the 911 telephone tax. A Freedom Of Information (FOI) request was submitted to Wheeling, for a copy of those letters. Here is the response:

"In order to respond to your request in the manner prescribed under the IL FOIA, I have to tell you that strictly speaking (and unfortunately) the Village does not have any documents on file that answer your request. Scans or copies of signed original correspondence to members of the General Assembly on the issue of emergency telephone system were evidently not retained by the Village."

The letter went on to say that had the letter been sent, it would have been sent to these persons, and would have said the following ...

Another FOI request was made for the legislature's response. Here is the reply: "I can tell you that I definitely have no written responses on file. It's entirely possible that Jon (village manager) has received a telephone call from one of the legislators."

It sounds to me like the Village of Wheeling is taking the easy way, and just raising the tax on the old-fashioned Illinois Bell telephone line service. That is the only service that the state of Illinois will allow them to tax. Other telephone service providers like Comcast, AT&T Uverse, Skype, and cellphones are immune to the village's taxation increase.

Take the money from the general fund, and work with the state, for real, to increase the tax equally across all telephone users.

Terry Steilen

Wheeling