My husband does an amazing job filing old bills. So I had no doubt he could dig up more than three years’ worth of MCI bills if we ever wanted to actually calculate a refund on our 2006 federal income tax return for a now-defunct, long-distance phone tax.

My husband found those bills -- or most of them. We quickly concluded that we’re not going to make big money by trying to file yet another tax form.

I doubt whether you would, either. So maybe we don’t need to feel guilty if we opt for the easy out on this one.

Refund based on excise tax

Recently, the Internal Revenue Service announced guidelines for a onetime tax refund based on the old excise tax on long-distance phone service. The refund is available to anyone who paid long-distance taxes on landline, cell phone or Voice over Internet Protocol service.

The federal government lost a series of cases in which courts held that the 108-year-old tax didn’t apply to long-distance service as it’s billed today. The government stopped collecting the excise tax on long-distance service as of July 31.

The IRS refund applies to the excise taxes paid after Feb. 28, 2003, and before Aug. 1, 2006.

To get the easy money, taxpayers only have to fill out one additional line on their 2006 income tax return. You don’t need your old bills. You won’t have to itemize deductions to get this refund.

And if you don’t typically file a tax return because you don’t owe taxes, you’d want to file what’s called a Form 1040EZ-T to get the phone refund.

The standard refunds are:

• A maximum refund of $60 for a family of four or more.
• A $50 refund for a family of three.
• A $40 refund for two.
• A $30 refund for a single filer.

«It’s going to be based on the number of exemptions you’re claiming on your 2006 tax return,» said E. H. Rubinsky, tax analyst for RIA, a provider of tax information and software to tax professionals.

«They’re trying to simplify this.»

The IRS said the standard amount is based on telephone usage data and reflects the tax paid by similar-size households.

The most recent rate for the excise tax was 3%.

Then again, individuals who think they’re being shortchanged also have the option of calculating the tax by finding their old bills and filling out the new Form 8913.

But because the IRS refund applies to the excise taxes paid dating back more than three years, filers would potentially need to dig up 41 months of old phone records.

Many tax experts suggest that consumers simply take the refund money on the table and skip the scavenger hunt for old bills.

«Leave that garbage bag at home, where it belongs. Don’t bring it to my office,» joked James Jenkins, president of Jenkins & Co., a tax firm in Southfield.

Paperwork hunt

To check this out, I looked at our old bills.

My husband and I have our long-distance service through one carrier. Our local service is through another carrier. So we needed only the long-distance bills from MCI.

But it helps to eyeball a few bills to see what kind of taxes you’ve been paying.

At our house, we’d get $50 without digging up any bills. That’s the standard refund for two parents and one child.

The actual excise tax?

A random look at our bills showed that we paid anywhere from 35 cents to 55 cents a month from 2003 through the time the tax expired.

For example, we paid 55 cents for the tax on our long-distance bill in June 2006. That bill totaled $21.17.

Say we even paid 60 cents a month each month for 41 months, we’d still be talking about only $24.60 in excise taxes.

The standard refunds start looking more reasonable.

Yes, the tax refund includes some interest. But we’re also talking about extra work digging up bills -- and filling out forms.

Certainly, there are exceptions.

If you’re single and someone who uses long-distance a lot, you might come up with a bigger refund on your own.

Or if you have more than one phone service, say, long-distance service for a landline and cell phone service, you might be able to get a bigger refund by finding your old bills, said Maggie Doedtman, tax advice manager for H&R Block in Kansas City, Miss.

But in most cases, don’t waste your time digging.

Telephone tax refunds

• Businesses and nonprofits are required to base their telephone tax refund on the actual amount of the tax paid. The IRS last week said it is continuing to work on a reasonable method for estimating those
• Remember, the excise tax continues to apply to local service. The IRS does not refund taxes on local service.
• Individuals are expected to receive about $10 billion in telephone tax refunds next year, economists at the U. S. Department of Treasury say.