Common Regulatory Fees and Taxes

Federal USF
This fee is assessed against local and long distance interstate phone service and remitted to the Universal Service Fund administrator to ensure affordable access to telecommunications services for low income customers, schools, libraries and rural health care providers.

Federal Tax
A Federal Tax may encompass several types of tax for a small minority of customers, but for most Cinergy customers the Federal Tax that is collected is Federal Excise Tax (FET). FET is charged on Long Distance and Local Telephone charges. The amount charged is used for the United States Treasury General Fund.

FCC Subscriber Line Charge
This fee is assessed against your local service to recover the costs of providing long distance access over local phone lines.

Local Number Portability
This fee is assessed against your local service to help recover costs for service and equipment that allows customers to switch their local service provider while keeping their same telephone number.

E911
This fee is assessed against your local service to recover costs for services and equipment that allow customers to dial 911 emergency services.

KY Communication Services Tax
Beginning January 1, 2006, Kentucky placed a state excise tax of 1.3% on gross revenues from communication services. This tax applies to most communication services, including telephone and internet. This tax is applied monthly to the total amount billed for qualifying services on all Kentucky customers' accounts.

Kentucky Access Fee and Local Access Fee
In Kentucky, any telephone company who buys telephone service for resale must pay sales tax on that service. Through the access fee, we recover the sales tax paid by us to other telephone companies for any signal or access bought by us to be sold to our customers. The regular access fee would apply to Long Distance charges while the Local Access Fee applies to local charges.

State Tax
In all states the sale of telecommunications services is subject to some sort of state tax. The majority of items that encompass state taxes are listed below.

• Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky charge sales tax on eligible telecommunications sales. The concept and basis of this tax is similar to the ordinary normal sales tax charged on goods and services in the various states mentioned. Please note that Missouri, Tennessee and Ohio also collect local sales tax on behalf of their localities. This tax is also stated as a state tax since it is collected by a state agency.
• Florida and Illinois state this tax is called the Communications Services Tax. This tax was devised mainly for the telecommunications industry and is similar in nature to sales tax. The only difference is in these states the legislature specifically passed taxes that just apply to the telecommunications industry and exempts the same services from sales tax. Both states also collect a local tax in a majority of jurisdictions for these taxes.
• Illinois also charges a PUC Fee and a Telecommunications Infrastructure Fee. The PUC Fee funds the regulatory agency in that state and the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fee funds the maintenance of telecommunications infrastructure.
• Florida also collects a gross receipts tax on all telecommunications services sold in the state.
• Missouri charges a State Deaf and Disabled Fund Fee. This fund is used to provide access to telecommunications services for deaf and disabled individuals.

State USF
In some states, the state has a Universal Service Fund separate from the Federal Universal Service Fund. This fund serves as a supplement to the federal fund and primarily insures that low income individuals can have access to reasonably priced phone service.

Local Tax
Local tax is any tax charged by a local government. These taxes may be telecom specific or not depending on the state. Whether there are local taxes on your bill varies from state to state and in some cases from locality to locality. Please note as mentioned above, any local tax collected by a state agency is listed under state taxes on your bill.

Regulatory Compliance Charge (RCC)
This charge is assessed to offset the costs incurred to remain in compliance with state and federal regulations.

Property Tax Recovery Charge
This charge is collected to offset the costs incurred from the taxing of property used in the transmission of voice and data services for customers.

Network Management Fee
This charge is collected to offset the fees and network costs associated with the provision of Q-Link VBX which is a next-generation IP-based information service.

Telecommunications Relay Surcharge
This fee is assessed against your local line to recover costs for providing telephone services to consumers with speech and hearing impediments.

PICC
The Presubscribed Interexchange Carrier Charge (PICC) is a flat-rate per-line fee that long distance companies pay local telephone companies for accessing the local companies' networks. If a consumer or business hasn't chosen a long distance carrier, the local telephone company may bill the consumer or business for the PICC.

Service and Handling Charge
This charge is assessed to accounts receiving a paper bill and/or paying non-electronically. Pay online and save by using our Online Account Management (OAM) system.