Can I Do That? Verizon Decides to Just Stop Paying Taxes
As if workers, customers, elected officials, taxpayers, and honesty wasn’t enough, you can now add ’struggling communities’ to the increasingly long list of things Verizon will show a blatant disregard to when it wants a quick buck.
In the New Jersey communities of Hopewell, Dover, Victory Gardens, Wrightstown, and Wharton, Verizon just isn’t paying taxes it owes on telephone poles any more. No notice to towns trying to plan budgets in the worst recession in 70 years, no appeal to the legislature to ask for a different tax structure, nothing. They just quit paying. But is Verizon embarassed and crawling into a hole somewhere? Well, not exactly. Actually, their reaction is to say, “Mount Arlington, Pompton Lakes, Wanaque, Hopatcong! You’re next! And a bunch of other towns in 2011!”
Some towns, like Hopewell, are fighting Verizon, pointing out that the non-partisan New Jersey Office of Legislative Services “finds no support” for Verizon’s actions. Others, like Wharton, can’t afford the legal battle it would take to get Verizon to follow the law, so they’ve just given up on the revenue.
Aside from the obvious issue that if you or I just all of the sudden decided we could interpret a law to mean we don’t have to pay taxes, we’d shortly be receiving a visit from a sheriff and Verizon gets away scott free, there are larger issues at play here.
At the heart of the matter is the fact that Verizon wants complete deregulation of the services it provides, and wants to basically stop paying taxes altogether. And as several state legislators talk about the need for regulatory reform, Verizon will wield this new power to just up and quit paying taxes like a club. The message: “Don’t give us what we want, and we’ll force you to pay hundreds of millions just to get us to follow the law.”
In the mean time, the small towns, already reeling, are struggling to fill huge gaps in their revenue. Because Verizon wants a few more dollars, towns all over New Jersey are looking at losing services, repairs not being made, or higher property taxes.
Dennis Bone, president of Verizon in New Jersey, complained that Verizon shouldn’t be subject to a tax that cable and satellite companies don’t pay. And putting aside the fact that Bone is picking and choosing the best of both regulatory worlds, he doesn’t exactly come crying when things are reversed and Verizon is receiving millions of dollars from taxpayers competitors aren’t. Repeatedly. And Bone was not at all considering fairness to competitors when he lobbied heavily for a cable franchise bill in the state legislature designed to make Verizon untold millions in new profits.
Apparently for Bone, fairness among competitors is only something that should be considered if it leads to Verizon making more money.
But, hey, the residents of New Jersey don’t mind paying higher taxes so Verizon can hit its ninth billion dollar of corporate profits this year. Right?
