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NEWINGTON, CT, Jul 30, 2003--The FCC has announced that the new Amateur Radio vanity call sign regulatory fee of $16.30 for the 10-year license term will go into effect September 9. Applicants for amateur vanity call signs will continue to pay the $14.50 fee per vanity call sign application until the new fee goes into effect. The FCC says it expects to collect close to $160,000 from 9800 Amateur Radio vanity call sign applicants during Fiscal Year 2003. That's up by almost $30,000 and 800 applications from FY2002. In releasing its annual Report and Order (Docket MD 03-83) on the assessment and collection of regulatory fees for FY2003, the FCC responded at some length to comments filed from the amateur community.
"Some commenters assert that no regulatory fees should be assessed for vanity call signs," the FCC noted. "Other commenters support the payment of a regulatory fee for the administrative costs incurred by the Commission when it initially issues a vanity call sign, but question why a regulatory fee is assessed when renewing the amateur vanity call sign." The FCC said some commenters contended that the FCC should not assess a fee for vanity call sign renewals, while others proposed the fee's elimination and offsetting the revenue loss with a higher initial application fee.
The FCC said that while Section 9 of the Telecommunications Act of 1934 governing the assessment of regulatory fees does not apply to Amateur Radio operator licenses, it does cover applications for vanity call signs, which "are voluntarily requested by licensees" and are "a value-added benefit not afforded to all licensees." Assessment of a regulatory fee to cover the FCC's processing and enforcement costs to make the vanity call sign service available is reasonable, the FCC concluded.
The FCC said its current policy of assessing "a nominal fee" at the time of initial application and at each renewal allows greater access to vanity call signs. "A high one-time-only fee would be cost prohibitive for many entities wishing to obtain a vanity call sign," the Commission said. "This approach is also consistent with the fact that the Commission incurs costs in managing each vanity call sign throughout its existence, not merely the first 10 years of its initial license period."
The present "payment methodology" makes equitable the cost of holding any given vanity call sign among all holders throughout the existence of each call sign, the FCC said. It noted, for example, that a vanity call sign held for 30 years would cost three times the amount of holding it for 10.
Kevin Hemsley, NF7J, had suggested that the FCC automatically refund a vanity fee when it denies a vanity application rather than requiring applicants to request refunds. "Our rules state that the Commission will not process refunds of regulatory fees without a written request from the applicant, permittee, licensee or agent in question," the FCC said, citing 47 CFR 1.1160(d) in upholding the requirement for a written request.
"The written request serves as documentation when cross-referencing each unique file number that may be entitled to a refund," the FCC went on to say. "This documentation is essential for all applications, and particularly so for amateur radio vanity call sign applications, because filing trends indicate that some applicants file several vanity call sign applications per day for several days on end." The FCC said when a particular vanity call sign is granted to a filer, all of that filer's other applications are dismissed.
"Certifying which fees are to be refunded for which dismissed applications would be much more labor intensive without the aid of any refund request documentation," the FCC said, adding that to do otherwise could lead to increased costs and higher regulatory fees.
"More importantly," the FCC said, "the many processors of the myriad applications and filings submitted to the Commission's various Bureaus and Offices are not granted the authority to issue refunds without proper documentation." The FCC also said keeping a file of written refund requests paid to applicants "is a sound accounting practice" and necessary to ensure the integrity of the FCC's financial management and accounting systems.
The Report and Order concludes a proceeding to collect $269 million in regulatory fees for FY2003. "These fees are mandated by Congress and are collected to recover the regulatory costs associated with the Commission's enforcement, policy and rulemaking, user information, and international activities," the FCC said.
A copy of the Report and Order is available on the FCC Web site.
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