This article provides answers to the most frequently asked questions pertaining to the tax charged on your account.

For more information, please see our full article on Taxes

Why is Ytel charging me tax?

In most cases, the services and products provided by Ytel are subject to tax. Ytel utilizes a nationally recognized third party tax company to perform tax assessments to your account. As determined by our third party, Ytel's billing system applies taxes for applicable sales and/or usage in jurisdictions where we are required to collect them. Ytel itself does not determine the amount of tax charged.

How does Ytel know how much to charge?

Taxes are calculated based on your service address. If there is no service address provided, the tax will be based on your billing address.

Due to the complexity of local/state/federal tax laws, Ytel has chosen to partner with a nationally recognized third party tax business that focuses solely on tax laws. At the time a purchase is made or service is rendered, your transaction is passed to this company in order for them to calculate the amount of tax owed.

Note: Ytel does not share the contents of your usage, just the duration or quantity and the corresponding billing code(s).

How do I obtain an estimate of what my taxes will be?

Unfortunately, Ytel has no way of providing an accurate estimate of what your taxes may be. The tax assessment may change monthly depending on varying reasons such as your service address or state/local tax laws changing and/or purchases made and/or services rendered.

Where do I see how much I paid in tax over a given time period?

Login to your Ytel account as a user with Account Owner role or Billing permissions, click Reporting > Usage. Input the date range and click "Generate Report". The description will read 'Tax total' and will display the amount for the period specified. Note:If you require a hard copy, choose the option to Export.

How does tax affect my available account balance?

Tax is assessed at the time of purchase or upon consumption of services. The tax amount is withdrawn from your available account balance at the same time the service fees are charged. We recommend all customers enable auto-recharge to minimize any interruptions of service due to insufficient funding.

What is the difference between Tax and Surcharge?

Tax amounts are required under law. Surcharges are additional amounts imposed by various entities (Ie. Mobile Network Operators) on top of their normal service fees. In both cases, Ytel is not the party imposing the charge and earns no profit from either.

The rate you charged me appears to be higher than my local tax rate. Why is this?

Ytel's billing system combines all applicable tax related charges, and other regulatory fees, into a single line item labeled Taxes. Due to this, it may appear as if you are paying a higher effective tax rate than what you actually are paying in just tax alone. For example, sales tax and telecom tax are two distinct taxes and appear together on your Usage Report as a single line item.

What if my business is tax exempt?

If your business is a 501(c)3 organization or is in possession of a state specific tax exemption certificate(s), please contact Ytel Customer Support by clicking the chat icon in the lower right corner of this page. Please be prepared to provide us with a copy of your documentation and your accountSID. We will create a service case and will follow up once your information has been verified by our third party verification service.

Please note that even if you have an exemption certificate you may not be exempt from all taxes in every jurisdiction. An exemption certificate is valid only for the state of issuance and only applies to SaaS taxes, not telecommunications taxes.

To be exempt from the Federal Universal Services Fund Fee (USF) and/or the Telecommunications Relay Service Charge (TRS) - Federal Cost Recovery Charge fee, you must be a 'Direct Contributor' to the Universal Services Fund.