The Power of Support

Products and services offered by DISH Wireless L.L.C. (“Boost”) are subject to various taxes, surcharges, and fees and are subject to change at any time. Each product or service sold by Boost may be taxed differently depending on how your governmental jurisdiction treats each charge. Certain charges involve bundled services sold for a single price.  For example, some wireless plans include voice, data, and text services for a single monthly charge.  Each of these services may be subject to different taxes or fees. In order to determine how much of the single charge is allocated to each service, we look at, among other things, previous customer usage and allocate appropriately based on this historical usage for each wireless plan offer.  These allocations may change from time to time which will affect the amount of taxes and fees applied to your bill. 

To determine the applicable taxes and fees billed on your service, Boost will use the street address that you have provided as your Place of Primary Use (“PPU”) or assign a taxing jurisdiction that is reflective of the service area of your phone number.  In the event that the address provided is determined to be invalid, or not reflective of the area that you are receiving service, such as a PO Box, Boost will assign a default address for taxing purposes based on the best available information to us.  This will include, among other things, using your telephone number to generate your service area. In the event that you do not agree with the default address assigned and want to dispute the taxes charged, except as may be required by law, you must do so within 60 days of the billing event.

The Federal Universal Service Fund supports the telecommunications needs of consumers living in high-cost service areas, low-income households, schools, libraries, and rural healthcare providers.  The amount we charge you is meant to recover our contribution to the fund.  The FCC adjusts the amount we are required to contribute each quarter and therefore, we may adjust the amount charged on your bill to account for these changes.  For more information on the Federal Universal Service Fund, please visit: https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service.

The Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee is charged to recover the following regulatory costs incurred by Boost: Federal Telecommunications Relay Service, (Federal TRS) various FCC Regulatory fees and the cost to comply with other federal regulatory programs.

State and local charges vary depending on your place of primary use. Some of the more common charges, which may or may not appear on your bill, include:

Taxes assessed by state, county or city governments on telephone services that are imposed on the consumer. Boost is required to collect and remit these taxes to the applicable government authority.

A dedicated tax that provides funds for the communications systems that support emergency and quick response police, fire and ambulance services with identification of phone number and location. These are imposed on the consumer. Boost is required to collect and remit these taxes to the applicable government authority.

These taxes are assessed outside the scope of states, counties or cities and are used for transit districts, stadium districts and other special purpose tax districts. They are imposed on the consumer. Boost is required to collect and remit these taxes to the applicable government authority.

These taxes are applied similar to sales and use taxes, but are specifically applied to communication services including wireless telephone service. They are imposed on the consumer. Boost is required to collect and remit these taxes to the applicable government authority.

These taxes are assessed by state, county or city governments on wireless telephone service. Amounts charged by Boost are remitted to the applicable government authority.

Depending on the location of your place of primary use, certain State and Local regulatory surcharges may be applied to recover costs incurred by Boost for State regulatory requirements. These charges are generally meant for reimbursement of taxes imposed on Boost that we are choosing to pass on to the consumer. These include, but are not limited to the following:

These surcharges help to keep basic exchange rates affordable to all customers who live in the state. Funds collected are remitted to the state utility commission.

Please note, the Texas Universal Service Fund assessment rate has been increased from 3.3% to 24% effective August 1, 2022. Effective July 1, 2023 the rate has been decreased from 24% to 12%.

The California PUC has adopted a new surcharge mechanism to fund the State’s Universal Service Public Purpose Programs. Effective 4/1/2023, each wireless line will be subject to a surcharge of $1.11 per month. Here is a link to more information about the change and what the surcharge is used to fund.

This surcharge helps to fund relay centers that assist hearing and speech impaired individuals make and receive phone calls. Funds collected are remitted to the appropriate government authority administering the fund.

Certain jurisdictions assess an excise tax on telecommunication services. Funds collected from this surcharge are remitted to the applicable government authority assessing the tax.

If you have any questions about the taxes or fees you are charged, please email us at consumertaxissues@dish.com.