Though it's been proposed and shot down before, a renewed effort to cap federal taxes on wireless service in the US has a fighting chance of making it through Congress this time thanks to bipartisan support and a pretty crappy economy that could use all the breaks it can get right about now. Senators Ron Wyden and Olympia Snowe, representing both sides of the chamber, are trying to push through a five-year ban on tax hikes -- welcome news to pretty much any subscriber who takes even a fleeting look at the buffoonery on page one of their bill. Unsurprisingly, it's also welcome news to carriers who embrace any opportunity to lower their bills without any action on their own part; Verizon for one has come out to say that it "applauds" the legislation. How about a bill to ban 20-cent text messages, hmm, Verizon? Would ya applaud that? Thought not.

Philippine Trade Secretary Peter Favilla has proposed adding a new tax on SMS messages purportedly to offset the loss of a 12 percent sales tax on oil products. Though it would seem from an interview, that Mr. Favilla is a hater where SMS is concerned as he's quoted saying that an SMS tax would shift Filipino focus to endeavors that are more productive. We're huge fans of SMS messaging round these parts -- and remain pretty productive -- a tax on it would likely drag significant cake from our pockets, here's hoping the tax isn't a per use affair.

[Via textually.org]

Just days after hearing that Steve Jobs was indeed looking into the possibility of letting third party applications play nice with his precious iPhone, along comes a suitable patent application that further proves his hesitance to let it happen. Jobs didn't shy away from suggesting that non-native apps aren't usually cellphone-friendly, and a new filing from Cupertino's lair details an "accessory detector" that would "detect whether an external accessory coupled to the connector may interfere with wireless communication with the handheld device." Of course, no direct mention of the iPhone is given, but it sounds like this here invention would alert the user via on-screen messages and flurries of frightening noises if the inserted / installed accessory did not match up with an internally stored "list" of okayed devices. Additionally, the handset would be able to adjust itself on the fly if the add-on did indeed "interfere" with operations, and while no verbiage mentioned any kinds of shut downs or undercover dial-ups to Apple HQ for unauthorized use, there's always the possibility that this type of scrutiny could lead to an easier implementation of a "Made for iPhone" type royalty program.

[Via UnwiredView]

For us here in the States, April 17 was the deadline for filing those pesky 2006 taxes. There were probably a few million folks scrambling to get their tax filing completed online or with a mad dash to the post office. Why not pay taxes by SMS? After all, text messaging is a bigger industry than Hollywood. Alas, we're not quite there yet, but in the Philippines, the Bureau of Revenue Service is offering a tax filing service that works via text messaging. The SMS tax service, dubbed "PAYBIR," allows Filipino taxpayers with a tab of $281 or less to pay by whipping out their mobile. The service works in concert with Land Bank of the Philippines and Globe Telecom, which uses its G-Cash service to facilitate tax payments for SMS customers.

[Via textually.org]