§ 40-360. Telephone businesses—Generally.

(a)

Quarterly license fee imposed. Every telephone company and every corporation, company, association, joint stock company or association, partnership and person, and their lessees, trustees or receivers, appointed by any court whatsoever, owning, operating, leasing, controlling or managing any telephone line or part of telephone line used in the conduct of the business of affording telephonic communication for hire, shall pay to the city a license tax which shall be a sum equal to six percent of the gross receipts derived and collected from its or their customers located within the city, and any services there provided, except such receipts as represent charges for message rate toll, or long distance telephone service, charges for message rate interzone telephone service, charges for exclusive interstate service of any kind, charges for Morse, telegraph, television or radio program transmission facilities, or for other services furnished exclusively and permanently in connection with services extending beyond the boundaries of the city, charges for the billing and collecting for telegrams, charges for the sale of and advertising in telephone directories, charges for the rental of plant facilities or other property not currently used by any such company in furnishing its telephone services, and charges which combine both receipts which are taxed in this section and which are excepted in this section in all cases in which the demonstrable cost to any such telephone company in making a separation between the revenues taxed and those excepted shall exceed the evident revenue to be derived therefrom by the city under this section. Such license tax shall be paid quarter-annually in advance and shall be due and payable to the city treasurer on or before January 31, April 30, July 31 and October 31, respectively, of each year, based upon the gross receipts collected during the preceding period of three calendar months ending, respectively, on December 31, March 31, June 30 and September 30. In the event of the extension of the corporate limits of the city, the first license tax payment thereafter made by the licensee shall include gross receipts for the previously applicable period derived from the annexed area.

(b)

Penalties for failure to file reports or pay tax when due. The penalties for failure to file on time any report or return required under this section or to pay on time the license fee or tax due under this section are as specified in section 40-12 of this chapter.

(c)

Furnishing of ducts and pin space to city. As part of the consideration for a license, any licensee shall permit the city to use, free of charge, one duct in all of its conduits, now laid or hereafter to be laid, and to use the necessary pins upon any of the top crossarms of its poles, now erected or hereafter to be erected, for such of its municipal wires as are now used or may hereafter be used exclusively in the operation of the city's police, signal or fire alarm system; provided, however, that the city shall not use any such duct spaces or pins upon any crossarms for power transmission purposes, nor use any circuits in such ducts or upon such crossarms to regularly carry voltage in excess of 130 volts for signal purposes, nor otherwise use any such circuits so as to interfere with telephone communication or with the wires or equipment on such poles or in such conduits; provided, further, that the licensee shall not use its duct spaces or its crossarms, or otherwise so use the same as to interfere with the operation of the city's properly designed and constructed police, fire alarm or signal wires. If the business of the licensee requires the use of the duct space reserved for but not used by the city, upon notice to the city, the licensee may use such space; provided that the licensee thereafter, upon adequate notice from the city, shall furnish such wire facilities for the city as the city shall designate, at the commercial rates which may be then currently applicable; but, if such duct space is being used by the city, the licensee may, by furnishing to the city equivalent wire facilities without charge to the city, use such space, and the city shall receive the net salvage from such cable or plant as is displaced by the licensee, and the licensee shall furnish such additional wire facilities as may be then designated by the city, charging the city therefor at the commercial rates then currently applicable.

(d)

Authority to trim trees and foliage. Permission is hereby granted to any licensee to trim trees and foliage upon the overhanging streets, alleys, sidewalks and public places of the city so as to prevent the branches of such trees and foliage from coming in contact with the wires and cables of the licensee, all such trimming to be done under the supervision and direction of any city official to whom such duties have been or may be delegated.

(e)

Attachment of light or power wires to equipment of licensee. Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to require or permit any electric light or power wire attachments by the city or for the city to any of the property of the licensee. If light or power attachments are designed by the city or for the city, then a separate noncontingent agreement shall be a prerequisite to such attachments.

(f)

Reports by licensee. The licensee shall and is hereby required to make true and faithful reports under oath to the director of finance and to the commissioner of revenue of the city, in such form as may be prescribed by the director of finance, and containing such information as may be necessary to determine the amounts to which the license tax shall apply, on or before January 31, April 30, July 31 and October 31 of each year, respectively, for all gross receipts for the three calendar months last preceding, ending respectively on December 31, March 31, June 30 and September 30.

(g)

Payment of license fee. Each license tax so paid shall constitute payment for the three months beginning on January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1, respectively, as to which three-month periods, respectively, such payment shall be due and payable as prescribed in this section; provided, however, that the acceptance of such taxes shall not prejudice the right of the city to collect any additional taxes thereafter found to be due. If it becomes impossible or impracticable for any licensee to include in any quarter-annual payment of tax all of such gross receipts of such three-month period, the licensee shall pay the estimated amount of the tax and include the correct amount by adjusting the next succeeding quarter-annual tax payment to the city, without penalty.

(h)

Examination of records; audits. The city, the director of finance thereof and his assistants, and any public accountants selected by the city council or by the city manager, shall have the right, at all reasonable times during business hours, to make such examinations and inspections of the books of the licensee as may be necessary to determine the correctness of such reports. The licensee shall make available such books and records as may be required by the city, or its representatives, to determine the correctness of the payments specified in this section. The city shall have the right, at its own expense, to employ the same accountants who make the annual audit of the books, records and accounts of the business of the licensee, to audit, at the same time, its accounts and records and certify as to the correctness of any payments due and payable by the licensee to the city.

(i)

Scope of section. Nothing contained in this section shall be construed as giving to a licensee any exclusive privileges, nor shall it affect any prior or existing rights of any licensee to maintain a telephone system within the city. Payments made and to be made and the furnishing of ducts and pin space by the licensee as provided for in this section are in lieu of all other charges, extractions, rentals and payments in kind imposed by the city under any telephone franchise or telephone regulatory ordinance heretofore passed, subject to a final accounting for any amounts due the city thereunder.

(Code of Gen. Ords. 1967, § 21.456; Ord. No. 35172, 4-19-68; Ord. No. 130044, § 8, 1-31-13)