PROJECT *BOGUS FEES*

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fee.jpg

i'm embarking on a little study and i'd like to get your help. i plan on waxing philosophical, in the "tso's spam" tradition, about the fact that we're being nickled and dimed to death by bogus fees.
i am making a compilation of fees and other superfluous charges that show up on bills. i got the idea a few weeks ago when i had to mosey on over to the county sub-courthouse to pay for my car's registration sticker. most of the charges and fees sounded pretty, well, for lack of a better term, normal, but one poked me right smack dab in the eye. i had to pay an extra thirty cents for a "reflectorization fee." my first thought was shyuh, whatever, but after a little research i've found that, although "reflectorization" is not in the dictionary, it is a term used by the gubbament, namely the department of transportation, to describe the retroreflective surface of signs. uh huh. in layman's terms it's called the shiny stuff on signs, and as a nation we're paying a fortune for it.

anyway, in order to further my project, please share any bogus fees (even if they're just bogus-sounding fees) with me in the comment boxes. your generous help will be appreciated -- and, for your trouble, i'll even waive the retrouniversal multi-blogoshpere responsorializationer fee.

7 Comments

We have the AIF -- "Airport Improvement Fee". Everyone departing from the airport has to pay $10 to finance renovations. It's gone on for several years now. Well, the renovations are finished, so the fee is . . . going up to $15.

Bogus enough?

I think it should be unconstitutional to charge a fee with a 'made-up' name. Or the institution making up the name should get charged by some other institution.

Wish I had my utitlity bills in front of me. They are a font of hoaky fees. Off the top of my head, I know that Commonwealth Edison charges a "decommissioning fee". A little something to help pay for the dismantling of all the nuclear power facilities they built several decades ago and no longer want.

How about paying a buck fifty to access your money on an ATM to the bank that owns the ATM---and another dollar to the bank that has your money? No way is upkeep on a phone line costing the home bank several thousand a month.

How about (from a Cingular cell bill)

Federal universal service fund 1.21 (huh?)
Regulatory cost recovery fee 32 cents (talk about passing on the cost to the customer....)

Taxes/surcharges/assessments
A surcharge. 7 cents
B surcharge. 98 cents
State 911 tax. 31 cents
Universal lifeline charge. 48 cents-- isn't that 911?

I just happen to be paying church bills (again!), and the following appears on our bill:

State Occupation Tax $7.10

Here's what I think. If we're being occupied, I don't think we should have to pay the occupiers.....

A fine project indeed. The gubamint loves cryptic taxes. We here in Ohio have the "Unpaid Ohio Use Tax" which translated means, "we want our 6% of every purchase you made on the internet".

Our governor, Gov. Tax, I mean Taft, recently began taxing services like manicures and pedicures. So they clip your wallet while they clip your nails. (This won't apply to me. Just want it on the record that I'm no metrosexual.)

The government figures that by keeping you paying taxes from so many different sources, you'll never know what you REALLY pay, and that makes for a happy taxpayer.

I can explain a few of these fees:
Federal universal service fund 1.21 (huh?)
this pays to put communications lines (internet access) in public spaces, like libraries.
Regulatory cost recovery fee 32 cents (talk about passing on the cost to the customer....)

Taxes/surcharges/assessments
A surcharge. 7 cents
B surcharge. 98 cents
State 911 tax. 31 cents
Universal lifeline charge. 48 cents-- isn't that 911? no, that isn't 911. this subsidizes phone service for poor folk with medical conditions who can't pay for their phone service. It is usually very limited service and is local only - the idea is that if someone is sick and needs to call their doctor (or be called by their doctor) they have a phone to do it with.
The other charges may be bogus, but the ones I italicized were gubbamint interventions with good intentions. another form of income redistribution.

Good intentions? Can't we have benign neglect?

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This page contains a single entry by smockmomma published on March 15, 2004 5:46 PM.

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