This day on capitol hill february 15 1898 002775

<!–> –> This Day on Capitol Hill: February 15, 1898<!–>.

What happened

'Remember the Maine!' On this day in 1898, an explosion sank the American battleship USS Maine in Havana's harbor, killing 266 men. It was touched off by either a Spanish bomb, a Cuban mine or a boiler blast in the hull of the vessel. Responding to the battle cry, "Remember the Maine!, " Congress declared war against Spain, overriding the anti-war views of President William McKinley (Cuba was then a Spanish colony). To support pay for the war, Congress imposed a 1 percent excise tax on long-distance phone calls, then viewed as a luxury utilized only by the rich. Notably, the levy was supposed to go away at the end of the war; instead it persisted for an extra 109 years. This year, the administration aims to refund taxpayers regarding $13 billion that it continued to collect for almost four years after the excise tax was killed. For years Congress tried to do just that. The tax — rarely noticed on long-distance phone bills — soared as high as 25 percent in World War II. But the lawmakers never succeeded. In 2000, with the tax stabilized at 3 percent, President Bill Clinton vetoed the most recent attempt at repeal. Technology and judicial rulings finally did the tax in: With the advent of cell phones and bundled non-metered intends, the courts ruled that a tax based on the length and distance of a call produced little sense. The administration pulled the plug last Aug. 1, in the midst of another war. It additionally promised taxpayers refunds of capital erroneously collected since March 2003, the date of the binding court decision. Accordingly, a married couple with no children will obtain an automatic $40 refund this year. Other filers will obtain more or less, depending on how numerous exemptions they claim with the IRS, an agency that came into existence 15 years after the battleship blew up in Havana.

The bottom line

For now, this day on capitol hill february 15 1898 002775 remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.