Telephone excise tax refund

This is a one-time refund of long-distance excise taxes (details on how it came about are in this earlier blog item). The refund applies to phone charges billed between March 1, 2003, and July 31, 2006. If you have those bills on hand, you can figure your exact amount due back from the IRS, although that presents its own set of problems as blogged about here. Or you can claim a standard refund amount of $30 to $60, which is based on your filing status.
Even if you don't have to file a Form 1040, you still could get this rebate by filing special Form 1040EZ-T. If you meet Free File requirements, you can that no-cost, online avenue to request your phone tax refund.