Emergency telephone user surcharge.

The Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act generally imposes a surcharge on amounts paid by every person in the state for intrastate telephone service to provide revenues sufficient to fund "911" emergency telephone system costs, and requires the Office of Emergency Services to annually determine the surcharge rate. Commencing with the calculation made October 1, 2015, existing law requires the office to compute the charges applicable to the intrastate portion of prepaid mobile telephony services, as provided. The Prepaid Mobile Telephony Service Surcharge Collection Act establishes a prepaid MTS surcharge, as defined, based upon a percentage of the sales price of each retail transaction that occurs in this state for prepaid mobile telephony services, as defined, that is imposed in lieu of any charges imposed pursuant to the Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act and specified Public Utility Commission surcharges. That act requires the prepaid MTS surcharge to be annually calculated by the State Board of Equalization by November 1 of each year, commencing November 1, 2015, by using the emergency telephone user surcharge rate reported by the office and specified Public Utility Commission surcharges. The Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act requires the office to notify the board of the emergency telephone user surcharge rate and the emergency telephone user surcharge rate applicable to prepaid mobile telephony services by October 15 of each year. This bill would instead require the office to notify the board of the emergency telephone user surcharge rate by October 1. The Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act requires, immediately upon notification by the office and fixing the surcharge rate, the board to notify by mail every registered service supplier of the new rate. This bill would instead require the board to notify every registered service supplier of the new rate by means then available to it, including, but not limited to, mail, electronic mail, or Internet Web site postings. This bill would make other technical, nonsubstantive changes. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.