NEW YORK (AP) – Verizon Communications Inc., the nation’s second largest telecommunications company, on Monday reported third-quarter earnings fell by a third from a year ago due to tax charges.

Verizon earned $1.27 billion, or 44 cents per share, in the July-September period, down 34 percent from $1.92 billion, or 66 cents per share, a year earlier.

This year’s figure includes a charge of 16 cents per share for taxes related to a minority investment in Italian cell-phone carrier Vodafone Omnitel, and 3 cents per share in other charges.

Excluding those charges, earnings would have been 63 cents per share, beating the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial by a penny a share.

Last year’s earnings figure includes a number of businesses that have since been sold or spun-off, including the high-margin Yellow Pages business.

Excluding those businesses, earnings in last year’s second quarter was 53 cents per share.

Revenue came to $23.8 billion in the latest quarter, up 5.8 percent from a year ago.

Verizon’s major growth driver, the cell-phone operations, added 1.6 million customers, for a total of 63.7 million, just behind AT&T Inc.’s 65.7 million.

While Verizon has generally been slowly closing the gap with the larger AT&T, Verizon’s rival pulled ahead this quarter with an assist from Apple Inc.’s iPhone, for which it is the exclusive carrier.

In premarket trading Monday, Verizon shares rose 40 cents to $46.