County looking at telephone tax

Faced with the potential loss of a telephone users' tax worth $65 million a year, Los Angeles County supervisors are asking voters to approve a new measure in November that would preserve the tax at a lower rate - but also expand it to include new technologies.Troy Anderson in the Daily News.

Supervisors voted unanimously last week to place the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot, reducing the tax individuals and businesses pay on phones, natural gas and electricity from 5 percent to 41/2 percent in unincorporated areas, affecting more than 1 million people.

But the measure also would expand the types of communications that could be taxed, including text messaging on cell phones, paging, conference calls and other new technologies.