§ 5-7 — Definitions

For purposes of the taxes authorized by this Act: "Amount paid" means the amount charged to the taxpayer's service address in such municipality regardless of where such amount is billed or paid. "Department" means the Illinois Department of Revenue. "Gross charge" means the amount paid for the act or privilege of originating or receiving telecommunications in such municipality and for all services and equipment provided in connection therewith by a retailer, valued in money whether paid in money or otherwise, including cash, credits, services and property of every kind or nature, and shall be determined without any deduction on account of the cost of such telecommunications, the cost of the materials used, labor or service costs or any other expense whatsoever. In case credit is extended, the amount thereof shall be included only as and when paid. "Gross charges" for private line service shall include charges imposed at each channel termination point within a municipality that has imposed a tax under this Section and charges for the portion of the inter-office channels provided within that municipality. Charges for that portion of the inter-office channel connecting 2 or more channel termination points, one or more of which is located within the jurisdictional boundary of such municipality, shall be determined by the retailer by multiplying an amount equal to the total charge for the inter-office channel by a fraction, the numerator of which is the number of channel termination points that are located within the jurisdictional boundary of the municipality and the denominator of which is the total number of channel termination points connected by the inter-office channel. Prior to January 1, 2004, any method consistent with this paragraph or other method that reasonably apportions the total charges for inter-office channels among the municipalities in which channel termination points are located shall be accepted as a reasonable method to determine the taxable portion of an inter-office channel provided within a municipality for that period. However, "gross charge" shall not include any of the following: (1) Any amounts added to a purchaser's bill because of a charge made pursuant to: (i) the tax imposed by this Act, (ii) the tax imposed by the Telecommunications Excise Tax Act, (iii) the tax imposed by Section 4251 of the Internal Revenue Code, (iv) 911 surcharges, or (v) charges added to customers' bills pursuant to the provisions of Section 9-221 or 9-222 of the Public Utilities Act, as amended, or any similar charges added to customers' bills by retailers who are not subject to rate regulation by the Illinois Commerce Commission for the purpose of recovering any of the tax liabilities or other amounts specified in those provisions of the Public Utilities Act. (2) Charges for a sent collect telecommunication received outside of such municipality. (3) Charges for leased time on equipment or charges for the storage of data or information for subsequent retrieval or the processing of data or information intended to change its form or content. Such equipment includes, but is not limited to, the use of calculators, computers, data processing equipment, tabulating equipment or accounting equipment and also includes the usage of computers under a time-sharing agreement. (4) Charges for customer equipment, including such equipment that is leased or rented by the customer from any source, wherein such charges are disaggregated and separately identified from other charges. (5) Charges to business enterprises certified as exempt under Section 9-222.1 of the Public Utilities Act to the extent of such exemption and during the period of time specified by the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. (5.1) Charges to business enterprises certified under Section 95 of the Reimagining Energy and Vehicles in Illinois Act, to the extent of the exemption and during the period of time specified by the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. (5.2) Charges to business enterprises certified under Section 110-95 of the Manufacturing Illinois Chips for Real Opportunity (MICRO) Act, to the extent of the exemption and during the period of time specified by the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. (5.3) Charges to entities certified under Section 605-1115 of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity Law of the Civil Administrative Code of Illinois to the extent of the exemption and during the period of time specified by the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. (6) Charges for telecommunications and all services and equipment provided in connection therewith between a parent corporation and its wholly owned subsidiaries or between wholly owned subsidiaries when the tax imposed under this Act has already been paid to a retailer and only to the extent that the charges between the parent corporation and wholly owned subsidiaries or between wholly owned subsidiaries represent expense allocation between the corporations and not the generation of profit for the corporation rendering such service. (7) Bad debts ("bad debt" means any portion of a debt that is related to a sale at retail for which gross charges are not otherwise deductible or excludable that has become worthless or uncollectible, as determined under applicable federal income tax standards; if the portion of the debt deemed to be bad is subsequently paid, the retailer shall report and pay the tax on that portion during the reporting period in which the payment is made). (8) Charges paid by inserting coins in coin-operated telecommunication devices. (9) Amounts paid by telecommunications retailers under the Telecommunications Infrastructure Maintenance Fee Act. (10) Charges for nontaxable services or telecommunications if (i) those charges are aggregated with other charges for telecommunications that are taxable, (ii) those charges are not separately stated on the customer bill or invoice, and (iii) the retailer can reasonably identify the nontaxable charges on the retailer's books and records kept in the regular course of business. If the nontaxable charges cannot reasonably be identified, the gross charge from the sale of both taxable and nontaxable services or telecommunications billed on a combined basis shall be attributed to the taxable services or telecommunications. The burden of proving nontaxable charges shall be on the retailer of the telecommunications. "Interstate telecommunications" means all telecommunications that either originate or terminate outside this State. "Intrastate telecommunications" means all telecommunications that originate and terminate within this State. "Person" means any natural individual, firm, trust, estate, partnership, association, joint stock company, joint venture, corporation, limited liability company, or a receiver, trustee, guardian, or other representative appointed by order of any court, the Federal and State governments, including State universities created by statute, or any city, town, county, or other political subdivision of this State. "Purchase at retail" means the acquisition, consumption or use of telecommunications through a sale at retail. "Retailer" means and includes every person engaged in the business of making sales at retail as defined in this Section. The Department may, in its discretion, upon application, authorize the collection of the tax hereby imposed by any retailer not maintaining a place of business within this State, who, to the satisfaction of the Department, furnishes adequate security to insure collection and payment of the tax. Such retailer shall be issued, without charge, a permit to collect such tax. When so authorized, it shall be the duty of such retailer to collect the tax upon all of the gross charges for telecommunications in this State in the same manner and subject to the same requirements as a retailer maintaining a place of business within this State. The permit may be revoked by the Department at its discretion. "Retailer maintaining a place of business in this State", or any like term, means and includes any retailer having or maintaining within this State, directly or by a subsidiary, an office, distribution facilities, transmission facilities, sales office, warehouse or other place of business, or any agent or other representative operating within this State under the authority of the retailer or its subsidiary, irrespective of whether such place of business or agent or other representative is located here permanently or temporarily, or whether such retailer or subsidiary is licensed to do business in this State. "Sale at retail" means the transmitting, supplying or furnishing of telecommunications and all services and equipment provided in connection therewith for a consideration, to persons other than the Federal and State governments, and State universities created by statute and other than between a parent corporation and its wholly owned subsidiaries or between wholly owned subsidiaries for their use or consumption and not for resale. "Service address" means the location of telecommunications equipment from which telecommunications services are originated or at which telecommunications services are received by a taxpayer. In the event this may not be a defined location, as in the case of mobile phones, paging systems, and maritime systems, service address means the customer's place of primary use as defined in the Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Conformity Act. For air-to-ground systems and the like, "service address" shall mean the location of a taxpayer's primary use of the telecommunications equipment as defined by telephone number, authorization code, or location in Illinois where bills are sent. "Taxpayer" means a person who individually or through his or her agents, employees, or permittees engages in the act or privilege of originating or receiving telecommunications in a municipality and who incurs a tax liability as authorized by this Act. "Telecommunications", in addition to the meaning ordinarily and popularly ascribed to it, includes, without limitation, messages or information transmitted through use of local, toll, and wide area telephone service, private line services, channel services, telegraph services, teletypewriter, computer exchange services, cellular mobile telecommunications service, specialized mobile radio, stationary two-way radio, paging service, or any other form of mobile and portable one-way or two-way communications, or any other transmission of messages or information by electronic or similar means, between or among points by wire, cable, fiber optics, laser, microwave, radio, satellite, or similar facilities. As used in this Act, "private line" means a dedicated non-traffic sensitive service for a single customer, that entitles the customer to exclusive or priority use of a communications channel or group of channels, from one or more specified locations to one or more other specified locations. The definition of "telecommunications" shall not include value added services in which computer processing applications are used to act on the form, content, code, and protocol of the information for purposes other than transmission. "Telecommunications" shall not include purchases of telecommunications by a telecommunications service provider for use as a component part of the service provided by such provider to the ultimate retail consumer who originates or terminates the taxable end-to-end communications. Carrier access charges, right of access charges, charges for use of inter-company facilities, and all telecommunications resold in the subsequent provision of, used as a component of, or integrated into, end-to-end telecommunications service shall be non-taxable as sales for resale. Prepaid telephone calling arrangements shall not be considered "telecommunications" subject to the tax imposed under this Act. For purposes of this Section, "prepaid telephone calling arrangements" means that term as defined in Section 2-27 of the Retailers' Occupation Tax Act.

Legislative History

(Source: P.A. 102-1125, eff. 2-3-23; 103-595, eff. 6-26-24.)