The IRS has (finally) announced a formula for determining the refund for businesses and tax-exempt organizations to estimate their federal telephone excise tax refunds.
As noted before, the prospect of searching through years and years of telephone records was not particularly appealing for business owners in exchange for a small refund. To request a refund, businesses and tax-exempt organizations must complete federal form 8913, Credit for Federal Telephone Excise Tax Paid (not yet available for download). The form lets you figure the actual amount of telephone excise tax paid over the 41 months from March 2003 through July 2006, or use a formula which compares two telephone bills from this year to determine the percentage of their telephone expenses attributable to the long-distance excise tax.
Businesses should attach federal form 8913 to their regular 2006 income tax returns. Tax-exempt organizations must attach it to a form 990-T.
