 Until the middle of 2006, the tax was collected by telephone companies with respect to local and long-distance telephone services.Collection of the tax on most long-distance service was then halted due to a controversy that erupted over the wording of the law and the way telephone service is billed today.On May 10, 2005, The American Bankers Insurance Group won an important victory in the fight against the telephone excise tax, when the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed the decision of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, which had held that the services that ABIG purchased from AT&T were taxable.