>
>so how does it work if I get one here? this area code? the one there? i can
>change it later?
For business purposes you might want to have a local number people recognize, or not. But there are other considerations. This article is a couple years old. Jordan or somebody else probably has the current lowdown.
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2005/06/06/cz_sw_0606cellphone.html
[...]
>ever-higher cell phone taxes are likely to have another effect: More
>people will go to the effort of dodging them.
>
>That's what I did. A year after moving to Los Angeles from New York,
>I was reading my Verizon Wireless bill and noticed I was still
>paying New York taxes. New York, as it happens, has the highest
>state and local taxes in the country: 16.2% (if you add federal
>charges, it's 22.2%). I estimated I was giving my former city and
>state about $75 per year they didn't deserve.
>
>When I called Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon
>Communications (nyse: VZ - news - people ) and Vodafone (nyse: VOD -
>news - people ), to complain about the tax screw-up, I learned
>something odd. The operator told me that as long as I kept my old
>New York number, I would have to keep my old New York tax bill. It
>didn't matter that I had switched my billing address to L.A., she
>said, taxes are linked to area codes. If I wanted to pay L.A. taxes,
>she suggested, I needed to switch my phone number to an L.A. area code.
>
>That gave me a better idea. There are some states, blessedly, that
>don't soak their cell phone-using residents. (See chart.) One of
>those, I happened to know, is Idaho--a state I visit regularly. (The
>Gem State has a 2.2% tax rate, I would later discover, the fourth
>lowest in the country.) Well, I triumphantly informed the operator,
>I am moving to Idaho.
>
>Since it was clear I'd have to lose my coveted New York number to
>avoid Verizon-levied taxes, I changed to an Idaho number, provided
>an Idaho address, then promptly turned around and requested
>paperless billing, which I paid from my Los Angeles address.
>
>Since my fake move, my monthly bill has shown a tiny Idaho tax of
>about $1.15 per month. At that rate I figure I am saving about $60
>per year. If I was a bigger cell phone user, I would have saved far
>more. (I learned later, if I wanted to be a real cheapskate, I
>should have "moved" to Nevada, which holds the record for the
>country's lowest cell phone taxes at just 1.1%.)
>
>I also felt a bit guilty. I had established that is was practical to
>dodge high cell phone taxes. But was it legal? And was it ethical?
>
>The relevant federal law, it turns out, is the Mobile
>Telecommunications Sourcing Act, which went into effect in 2002.
>Cell phone users are supposed to pay taxes in their "area of primary
>usage," the law says. For me, that area is clearly California, not
>Idaho, so to comply with the law I should have switched my area code
>to Los Angeles. Though phone companies are physically able to
>determine where most calls originate, they also take easier
>shortcuts and simply use billing addresses and area codes.
>
>At the same time, Verizon had clearly violated the intent, even the
>letter, of the law by continuing to charge me New York's killer
>taxes after my move since the government has never forced cell phone
>companies to track individual calling patterns to determine the
>"area of primary usage."
>
>As for the ethics of my tax dodge, phonying up an address (even in a
>fit of pique) seems to cross the line. "I don't think you should be
>going out of your way to cheat the government," says Victor
>Fleischer, a UCLA law professor who just so happens to be another
>Los Angeles resident with a New York area code on his cell
>phone--and pays the extra taxes.
>
>Indeed, such costs seem to override at least the intent of yet
>another federal rule that allows cell phone users to carry their
>same phone number from one carrier to another.
>
>Fleischer also believes that the government does have an obligation
>to design a tax that is reasonably easy to follow.
>
>The cell phone companies say they are complying with the laws,
>though they admit that area codes and billing addresses are indeed
>crude proxies for locating where a wireless phone is actually used.
>Verizon Wireless appears to be alone in relying on area
>codes--Nextel Communications (nasdaq: NXTL - news - people ) and
>Sprint (nyse: FON - news - people ), presently in the midst of a
>merger, say they assess taxes based on billing addresses, an equally
>crude proxy.
>
>Of course, that just makes it easier to duck taxes by shifting your
>billing address to a cheap state and starting paperless billing. You
>won't even have to change your phone number. Cingular, owned by SBC
>Communcations (nyse: SBC - news - people ) and BellSouth (nyse: BLS
>- news - people ), says its sales representatives are trained to ask
>where a customers area of primary usage will be. All a customer who
>wants to duck taxes has to do then is fib.
>
>As for me, I've gotten over my anger at paying New York's
>extortionate tax rate after I moved. I'm not using a deceptive
>address anymore: I've kept my Idaho area code and my paperless
>billing, though I do live in Los Angeles. If a California taxman
>wants my money, he can try calling Verizon Wireless customer service
>and convincing them to change their tax assessment system. Maybe
>he'll have more luck than I did.
>
>As for tax-happy jurisdictions like Baltimore, I wouldn't be
>surprised if they see a sudden exodus of taxpayers, at least on
>paper. Every time you raise a tax, you raise people's incentive to avoid it.