Digital Economy

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The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance issued an advisory opinion, concluding that a taxpayer’s charges for its online webhosting solution were not subject to sales tax. The customers pay an annual fee for their events (audio and video meetings, conferences, webinars and live presentations) to be hosted and maintained and also…

On March 30, 2021, the Kansas legislature passed S.B. 50, which would require sales and use tax and transient guest tax collection by marketplace facilitators selling or facilitating the sale of property or services subject to these taxes, as well as set a remote seller tax collection threshold. Marketplace facilitators are required to collect…

On March 17, 2021, Arkansas introduced S.B. 558, which would impose Arkansas sales tax on advertising revenue from social-media platforms that have annual gross revenue from social-media advertising services in Arkansas of at least $500,000. The bill amends the sales tax statute to include a new subchapter imposing a 7% sales tax on a…

On March 24, 2021, the Nevada Senate introduced Senate Bill No. 346, which would impose an excise tax on the retail sale of specified digital products to an end user in Nevada. “Specified digital products” is defined as electronically transferred digital audio works, digital audio-visual works, digital books, digital codes, and other digital products.…

The North Carolina Department of Revenue issued a private letter ruling, concluding that subscription fees for a Software as a Service (SaaS) product are non-taxable. The taxpayer licenses a cloud-based SaaS platform for customer engagement and marketing, which customers access via the Internet.  The taxpayer charges customers a subscription fee for monthly access. The…

On March 11, 2021, the Florida House Ways and Means Committee approved H.B. 15. This bill and its Senate companion, S.B. 50, which was previously approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee, would require sales tax collection from a person whose remote sales to Florida exceed $100,000 per year and would require a “marketplace…

The Maryland Comptroller of Public Accounts issued guidance interpreting 2020 H.B. 932, entitled the 21st-Century Economy Fairness Act. Effective March 14, 2021, the act expanded the sales and use tax to sales and uses of digital products. Pursuant to its guidance, the Comptroller will apply tax to a variety of digital products – including e-books,…

Immediately before last Friday’s deadline for the filing of unrestricted bills, Texas lawmakers introduced a digital advertising tax bill and a bill that would expand sales tax to a wide array of services.

H.B. 4467, filed on March 12 by Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-TX-116) would impose a tax on gross revenue from digital…

A pair of recently-introduced Maryland bills would create a whistleblower program within the Maryland Comptroller’s office and possibly result in a headache for many taxpayers. The proposed whistleblower bills appear to be modeled after the IRS’ whistleblower program, although they contain a noticeably low materiality threshold and allow for the anonymous reporting of complaints.

The…

The North Carolina Department of Revenue released a private letter ruling, concluding that a web-based product used to handle administration, management, and record-keeping via a Software as a Service model was not subject to sales and use tax. Consumers accessed the software application, which was running on a cloud-based infrastructure. The ruling states: “North…