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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Sprint will pay New York $330 million over unpaid taxes

Sprint is about to write New York state a very, very large check. The carrier has agreed to pay New York $330 million in a settlement over claims it avoided collecting certain local and state taxes on cellular plans between 2005 and 2014. It's the largest ever false claims recovery by a single state, the Attorney General's office said. Allegedly, Sprint willfully misinterpreted a 2002 law to skip collecting a key sales tax based on the nature of its plans, leaving New York $100 million short.

The law required that carriers collect tax on the full portion of a flat-rate wireless service regardless of whether those calls were local, interstate or international. Sprint, however, reportedly decided to collect taxes only for the portion of service involving interstate calls. The network's lawyers were fully aware of what the law required, according to the Attorney General's office, and the state's appeals court had deemed the terms were "unambiguous."

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