STATEMENT OF 
COMISSIONER DEBORAH TAYLOR TATE
Re:  Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2008, MD Docket No. 
08-65
In today’s item, the Commission engages in its annual process of adopting a 
regulatory structure for assessing fees on telecommunications providers.  These fees 
amount to well over $300 million and finance the vast majority of the Commission’s 
activities.  Given this sizable tax burden on the telecommunications market – and 
ultimately on the telecommunications consumer – it is important that these fees be 
equitably assessed but not unduly burdensome.  
Some parties have raised a concern about whether these fees in fact are equitably 
assessed, and I am pleased that we are now focusing more on this issue.  As technologies 
change and consumers move across services and platforms, the Commission should 
review how its regulatory fees have differing impacts on service providers and their 
consumers.  Since this issue affects the entire industry and any change potentially would 
impact – either positively or negatively – all service providers, I encourage industry to 
propose an equitable solution to the assessment of regulatory fees.  Nonetheless, in the 
absence of an industry proposal, I am committed to working closely with my colleagues 
to resolve this matter.