USA Today

Text, Californians, text: State commission won't pursue tax on text messaging

California's Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) announced it would no longer be pursuing a measure that would've added a surcharge to phone bills for text messaging. "On Dec. 12, 2018, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a declaratory ruling finding that "text messaging" is an information service, not a telecommunications service, under the Federal Telecommunications Act," the CPUC wrote in its statement. The CPUC noted that if texting were a telecommunications service it would be subject to state tax under California law.