Sales and Use Taxes: Communications Services and Electronic Commerce (Portfolio 1350)

Description

Bloomberg Tax Portfolio, Sales and Use Taxes: Communications Services and Electronic Commerce, No. 1350, discusses the application of state sales and use taxes to communications services and electronic commerce. As state and local governments determine whether and how to tax electronic commerce and the communications services through which they are carried, taxpayers seek answers to whether their transactions are subject to tax. Communications services include both services provided by traditional telecommunications companies, as well as the newly emerging technologies, such as mobile telephony and paging, wireless telephone services, and the internet.

The Portfolio provides a historical discussion of the Bell System’s monopoly and the effects of its breakup. The current status of telephone services and broadcast media is reviewed, including the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

The authors analyze what constitutes a sufficient connection between the taxing state and the taxpayer and between the taxing state and the taxpayer’s activity such that the state may have jurisdiction to impose a tax. The Multistate Tax Commission’s publication “Draft Guidelines for Application of State’s Sales and Use Tax to an Out–of–State Business” is also reviewed, in an attempt to further understand the constitutional principles involved. Next, the Portfolio analyzes other constitutional issues including whether taxes upon interstate services must be apportioned.

The Portfolio then turns to determining whether a service is taxable as telecommunications, examining the taxation of traditional telecommunications services as well as non-traditional services such as information services, internet access, VoIP and communications services bundles. The Portfolio also examines the taxation of traditional interstate telecommunications services, private communications services, WATS/800 services, 900 services and interstate access services.

In addition, the Portfolio covers the historical and current treatment of internet services, including a discussion of the several versions of the federal internet Tax Freedom Act; the sourcing of various forms of telecommunications services; and some of the major issues and developments regarding taxes other than sales taxes.

Updates to the print and Internet version of the Portfolio will be incorporated directly into the Detailed Analysis.

Subscribers to the print version of the Portfolio will find late-breaking developments reported in the Bloomberg Tax Multistate Tax Report . Subscribers to the internet version of the Portfolio will find late-breaking developments reported in the Bloomberg Tax Daily Tax Report – State.

This Portfolio may be cited as 1350 T.M., Sales and Use Taxes: Communications Services and Electronic Commerce.

Table of Contents

1350.01. INTRODUCTION
1350.02. OVERVIEW AND DESCRIPTION OF THE INDUSTRY
1350.03. CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS INVOLVING NEXUS
1350.04. CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS OTHER THAN NEXUS
1350.05. DETERMINING WHETHER THE SERVICE IS TAXABLE AS TELECOMMUNICATIONS
1350.06. TAXATION OF INTERSTATE TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES
1350.07. TAXATION OF INTERSTATE ACCESS CHARGES
1350.08. TAXATION OF INTERNET ACCESS CHARGES
1350.09. TAXATION OF 900 SERVICES
1350.10. SOURCING ISSUES
1350.11. OTHER SIMILAR TAXES AND FEES