explain Video Franchise Fee & PEG Grant Fee

[Corvid1]

Can anyone explain how the Video Franchise Fee and PEG Grant Fee are calculated?  I thought these were supposed to be assessed against my bill at about 5% and 3%, respectively.  Howver, my 1st FiOS bill indicates these fees effectively are being charged to me at a much higher rate - perhaps nearly twice as high.  

It appears that Verizon may be adding up all the charges without factoring in any of the considerable amount of "credits and discounts" which they have factored into their low "advertised" cost (e.g., to  induce me to sign up for Triple Play), but Verizon then uses this inflated gross billing amount as the basis for applying the combined 8% televison fee charges. 

Effectively, it appears as though Verizon is offering to greatly discount their monthly cost for TV services but doesn't inform its customers that they will  have to pay a considerable ADDITIONAL sum to cover taxes on the amount which Verizon has supposedly "saved" them.

[lasagna]

Both of those fees are gross receipts taxes imposed on Verizon by your local taxing authority for the "priveledge" of allow them to provide you with TV service in your city/township/neighborhood and passed on to you.  Legalized extortion some would say.  🙂

You should be able to get the rates which apply to your area from your local taxing authority.

All service providers, to my knowledge, including Verizon and Comcast from personal experience, advertise their rates for service with the little asterisk next them that say "taxes not included" since that amount varies widely from location to location.  When comparing rates, those taxes should be roughly equivalent across all services, so if looking at advertising, it's a fair comparison (just not an accurate reflection of your final cost in any providers case).   If comparing using an existing service's bill, you need to use the amount "pre-tax" as your rate for comparison.

[defjab42]

PEG = Public, Education, Gov't  -

Public - the public access station in your area

Educational - Educational programs , u sually linked to the public schools, high school sports etc

Governemtn - City council meetings and the like

Video Franchise - As lasgna mentioned, this is on a city by city basis

These fees are negotiated bettween Verizon and the local government. It's usually a flat fee, not a percentage, but this is based off of 3 different localities that I have lived in while in MA

[Michellle123]

could you explain what percentage the PEG fee is, my PEG fee seems to be changing according to the number of movies I rent.

does the PEG fee applies  also to the movies I rent? the whole bill? or which portion of the bill?

do you also know about state sales taxes? do they apply to to the movie rental also?

thanks

[Verizonminus]

The amount of movies rented does increase the cost of the PEG Grant payment . That $5.99 movie you rent, you know the one you stop to get a snack 5 minutes before it's over. Yes, the one you come back to wanting to finish the movie and then it makes you start all over again with the weakest fast forward available and it takes half an hour ro watch the last 5 minutes---it's not 5.99. Between the PEG Grant and taxes it's more (you need a CPA to determine how much more). 

[billle]

?Why is it you can't get a go to person to answer these questions about Video Franchise Fee & PEG Grant Fee AND NYC Subway/MTA  charges - from the People  [ Verizon]who are collecting these charges,instead of being sent to a blog forum.

If Verizon collects these fees they should have FULL knowledge of them.

?Why am I sending monies through my phone co for educational grants to others when as you can see from my grammar and spelling I need it more.

?Franchise video fees by state by state seems to discriminate on certain areas with no explanation-lucky Florida.

?And why in hell does the MTA  NYC subways system get to put there hands in my pocket--what's this all about"GLEN" where are you....

There is a real phantom tax and fee group hiding in here.

Unhappy bill payer.........

[Da_Papol_926]

BILLIE, I AGREE 1000% WITH YOUR FRUSTRATION !!!

I am a New York State resident and live in Nassau County, Long Island. I recently switched my cable, phone and internet service from Optimum Cable (Cablevision) to Verizon's Triple Play package.  I was very discontent with Optimum's service and ballooning prices so I figured I'd switch to another provider and save myself the frustration!

I switched to Verizon just eight (8) days ago and I'm presently unsure that my frustration level will not exceed the level previously reached when I had Optimum Cable !

Verizon seems to be too large to catch up with itself. Their website always has glitches and nothing seems to work as advertised. I've been trying to get one question answered for the past few days and it seems that no one at Verizon knows the answer. I've called Verizon's customer service number at 1-800-VERIZON and been transferred from customer service to financial customer service and finally billing without answers to my question!

I've asked Verizon to please provide me with the percentages (aka percent values) used to compute all the taxes, fees and surcharges added to the basic service package cost.  While I understand that certain charges are fixed fees billed to all Verizon accounts (i.e. the 911 Surcharge of $0.35), there are definitely fees that are computed based on a percentage of the basic service package cost.  After a number of days calling customer service, I was finally told by a representative of Verizon's billing department that the information I was requesting was not available to Verizon support personnel!  I'm definitely not blaming Verizon's support personnel but It seems that "someone" or "something" at Verizon computes the "magic numbers" and adds them to our bills without anyone's knowledge of what they actually are.....this is absolutely ludicrous!

Is there anyone at Verizon who knows the answer to the questions raised by Billie and me??? If there is, then let's start-off the year on a high note and provide clear and definitive answers to these questions!

Another Very Unhappy Verizon Bill Payer!

[leebuen]

 The PEG program was suspended for acadamic year 2012-2013, but the PEG Grant Fee continues to appear on my monthly statement as usual. 

From reading my Verizon statement, it appears that the only charges which government bodies require Verizon to collect from customers are state sales and federal excise taxes.

All the other charges are courtesy of Verizon.  These are fees that Verizon is charged by various government bodies, and Verizon has decided it's much nicer (for them) to make their customers pay these fees by charging them as line items under the "Verizon Surcharges & Other Charges & Credits" heading.  Thus we, the customers, have the privilege of paying Verizon's  bills for such things as "Verizon Property Tax Recovery Charge", "Federal Universal Service Fee", "License Fee" , PEG Grant Fee, etc., freeing the cable company from having to pay these pesky charges themselves.

I sure wish had someone I could bill in order to recover my property taxes.  (Sigh)

[shortcircuit]

I wish I could run a business and pass on all my expenses to some one else too!

[kimiko1]

I am no less annoyed by all the fees and taxes on my Verizon bill than anyone else, but blaming Verizon for passing along its expenses to the customer is a bit silly. If a business does not make a profit, it ceases to exist. The only way a business can make a profit is to sell its product/service for more money than it cost to manufacture/provide those products/services. The taxes and fees governments place on the business's income or product/services become one of those COST of manufaturing/providing said product/service. Duh! Of course they pass it on to the customer. I suppose they could just roll all these taxes and fees into your bill without enumerating them, but in this case Verizon is doing you a service my showing you just how much your government is sticking it to you. That info might just make you a better informed voter.  Think about that the next time a politician promises to make a business "pay their fair share"; the translation is "let's make the consumer pay more". Any corporate tax is a tax on the consumer. Simple as that!

[LarryTate]

Is it true that my PEG fee will increase based on the amount of movies I rent? That Netflix sucks it is. (SNL humor)

SO if I know the percentages and rate tables for the governemnt exto..I mean taxes will I be able to tell Verizon I opt out? If not what is the point?

If these taxes go to CSPAN channels I have no problem.

If these taxes are simply giving money to politicians to steal and misuse then I have a problem with it.

[sakar60]

TV

• MA State Sales Tax             $0 .75
• PEG Grant Fee                     $2.10
  PEG Grant Fee                     $0.63
• Franchise Related Costs   $1.80
• Franchise Related Costs   - $1.80                        Total $ 2.73 if PEG grant fee.

How to get rid of these fees? Is these  collected fees  goes to Government and local? Or part of Verizon cost recovery?

**bleep** : We're charged for Franchise Related cost and gave credit. First of all we are  not buying any franchise : we are purchasing only services.

Are we going to pay McDonald Franchise fee if we want to eat Happy Meal?

I do no not have HBO, why I have to Pay for  PEG?

How to get rid of these fees which goes to Verizon's BALANCE SHEET?

[tns2]

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@sakar60 wrote:

TV

• MA State Sales Tax             $0 .75
• PEG Grant Fee                     $2.10
  PEG Grant Fee                     $0.63
• Franchise Related Costs   $1.80
• Franchise Related Costs   - $1.80                        Total $ 2.73 if PEG grant fee.

How to get rid of these fees? Is these  collected fees  goes to Government and local? Or part of Verizon cost recovery?

**bleep** : We're charged for Franchise Related cost and gave credit. First of all we are  not buying any franchise : we are purchasing only services.

Are we going to pay McDonald Franchise fee if we want to eat Happy Meal?

I do no not have HBO, why I have to Pay for  PEG?

How to get rid of these fees which goes to Verizon's BALANCE SHEET?

---

Certainly you pay the McDonald Franchise fee.  Its just not obvious.

And even if they decided to not directly charge you for these fees it would just go into a future price increase,

Want these fees to disappear or go down?  FIre a few politicians.

[OldSkoolDJ]

If you live in Mass, you can start by not voting for the {word filter avoidance} that impose the taxes - the frikkin' DEMOCRATS!

[tns2]

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@OldSkoolDJ wrote:

If you live in Mass, you can start by not voting for the {word filter avoidance} that impose the taxes - the frikkin' DEMOCRATS!

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Just as many republicans backing such taxes, at least in other states.

[kh-gary]

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