Is Your District Entitled to a Refund?
School Advisor, 2007 Issue No. 1  

The IRS has stopped collecting the excise tax on telephone service and provided an opportunity for taxpayers who paid this tax to request refunds. As an individual taxpayer, you should remember to claim this automatic refund on your 2006 personal income tax return.

Since districts are (or should be) exempt from this excise tax, we assumed there was no need to alert the school community to this refund opportunity. However, we just discovered one school district that has in fact paid this excise tax and is entitled to apply for refunds for 2003 to 2006. So we think it would be prudent for you to check your phone bills to be sure your district was not paying federal excise tax on telephone services.

If you find your district did pay this federal excise tax (excise tax on long-distance service billed after February 28, 2003 and all excise tax billed after December 31, 2003), you must file a Schedule 6 on Form 8849, Claim Refund of Excise Taxes. Call us, and we’ll help you with the forms.

The deadline for claiming excise taxes paid in the first quarter of 2004 is April 30, 2007. Refunds for taxes paid in the remaining quarters of 2004 also have deadlines that must be met. So you should check your telephone bills sooner rather than later.