Telephone Excise Tax Refund

I've seen a few emails about the "Telephone Excise Tax Refund" this year. Is it true!?! Yes!

Is it exciting? and secret? Not so much. I haven't filed my taxes yet, but I suspect it will be hard to miss. It's front and center on the IRS site today http://www.irs.gov
and the linked article http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=161506,00.html
indicates:

Instructions for requesting this refund will be included with your tax
forms and on this Web site

The refund amount may vary depending on the actual amount of excise tax you paid from Feb. 28, 2003 to Aug. 1, 2006. Do you have your phone bills for that period? I do!!! (Uh, I have mine, I don't have yours!) And I'll probably calculate it (or at least try) when we get ready to file. I suspect after all the calculations, I'd be better off taking the standard amount--$60 in the case of filing married with two or more children.

This is a one-time return of taxes collected that the government has ruled no longer applies to long distance service as it is billed today. It only goes back to 2/28/03 due to statutes of limitations.

For businesses (this applies to me too...) standard amount is not available, so we can fill out Form 8913 based on the actual amount of tax paid, or review 2 months of bills and use a super secret special formula.