The California Public Utilities Commission has withdrawn from its January meeting agenda a scheduled vote on imposing a tax on text messaging. The move came after the Federal Communications Commission in Washington declared text messaging to be an “information service,” not a telecommunications service, and thus not subject to a surcharge under California law. “Prior to this FCC ruling,” the CPUC wrote in a statement posted on Twitter, “text messaging was not a classified service under federal law. TEXT MESSAGES MIGHT BE NEXT TO FACE CALIFORNIA TAX, REPORTS SAY"This is unsustainable over time," the report states. It was not clear from the CPUC’s statement whether the panel had an alternative plan for funding those initiatives.

Source: Fox News December 16, 2018 06:22 UTC