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Schumer Proposes Foreign Call Center Tax

By Eric Lipman

TaxGirl has a post this morning about a new bill being endorsed by New York Senator Chuck Schumer (whom I still remember fondly from his "Chuck and Sue Show" days), which would impose a tax of 25 cents for each call to a U.S. company's customer service department that is transferred to a foreign call center. The AP article on the bill cites a 2006 survey of economists wherein 90 percent of those surveyed came out against such "protectionist tariffs and trade barriers," and Matt Welch at Reason's Hit & Run blog has some harsh words about the idea. Having spent more than my fair share of hours on the line with call centers foreign and domestic, I would call on Sen. Schumer, D., N.Y., or one of his colleagues to amend the legislation to require companies to provide their reps with the means to actually resolve a customer's issue, rather than giving the complete runaround. If the person on the other end of the phone is able to provide some relief, or at least some marginally useful information, where he's located is immaterial. Come on Congress, hook us up!

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on June 01, 2010 (boomark / email).