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Most of us pay our phone, electricity, gas, trash and cable bills without really looking at each of many taxes, fees and other governmental fund-raising charges included.

This week a local resident, who lives just outside the La Conner town limits on property that is unincorporated Skagit County happened to examine her Frontier landline phone bill.

Nestled in among the 10 federal, state, county and local taxes was one for the “Swinomish Indian Res Utility Use Tax,” even though her home is not within the reservation boundaries.

She said Frontier told her it was up to the government agency charging the tax to determine they weren’t authorized to charge it.

“We’ll get it worked out,” said Alicia Neeley, the Swinomish tax administrator.

She said there have been problems with some service providers, especially some cell phone companies, making mistakes in which jurisdictions to collect taxes for.

Verizon was having a problem figuring out which customers paid which tax and was confusing Swinomish and La Conner taxes a year or so ago.

The Swinomish Tribal Indian Community and the Town of La Conner both assess utility taxes on phone and other utility customers within their boundaries.

The Swinomish Utility Tax is 3 percent; La Conner’s is 6 percent.

Maria DeGoede, the finance director with the Town of La Conner, said she went through a long process with Verizon Wireless last year to get taxes corrected for a town resident.

She said at that time the utility told her they didn’t know about errors unless customers called them individually.

“I wonder how many people are actually affected,” DeGoede said.

It’s taken several calls from customers, the town and the tribe, but for now the Verizon tax error seems to be resolved, Neely said.

DeGoede said Verizon told her it would use the 911 system data to help figure out the jurisdictions. Emergency calls on the reservation go to Fire District 13 and within the town go to the La Conner Fire Department.

But that method isn’t necessarily foolproof — 911 calls on Pleasant Ridge and Channel Drive, both in unincorporated areas of Skagit County, also get routed through Fire District 13.

Adding to the confusion and making the area more mistake-prone, Swinomish, and nearby areas of unincorporated Skagit County as well as the Town of La Conner share not only a postal ZIP code, but phone prefixes, too.

“I think they use ZIP codes,” said Neely. It just doesn’t work when the phone providers in our area use those numbers to determine jurisdictional boundaries.

So this month, Neely with Swinomish and DeGoede with La Conner advise residents to check their utility statements.

If you live on land that is neither in the town nor on the reservation, you shouldn’t see La Conner or Swinomish utility taxes on your bill.

If you live within the La Conner Town limits, you should see La Conner tax, but not Swinomish tax.

If you live on leased or fee simple land within the boundaries of the Swinomish Reservation, you are subject to Swinomish utility tax, but not town taxes.

And if your bill has a generic “local tax” line, it might be a good idea to call the utility and ask which jurisdiction’s tax they’re collecting.

Neely said if utility customers see Swinomish utility tax incorrectly added to their bills and contacting the utility directly doesn’t work, her office stands ready to help set the provider straight.

Further, if people find they’ve been paying the incorrect tax, the utility must refund the money to them, Neely said.

For help with Swinomish tax call 360-542-7633 or email [email protected]. Questions about La Conner taxes can be answered at Town Hall, 360-466-3125.