More California cities taxing cell phones, Internet

Taxes on wireless services -- cell phones, Internet access and text messaging -- are coming more in vogue, especially in California, where 22 cities have extended their public utilities taxes to such communications in recent years. The latest to give it a try is Pleasant Hill, a San Francisco Bay Area city that will ask voters in November to expand its "utility users tax."

Phone bills are long enough already, with all of the taxes added by various agencies which can drive cell phone users to a simpler phone plan -- a prepaid cell phone where taxes usually aren't added.

"If it doesn't move, somebody somewhere is going to try to tax it," said Eli Lehrer, who runs the finance project at the Heartland Institute, a national think tank that focuses on the states.