Massachusetts Enacts 6.25% Sales Tax On "Prewritten" Software Consulting

First time accepted submitter marshallr writes "Technical Information Release TIR 13-10 becomes effective in Massachusetts on July 31st, 2013. It requires software consultants to collect a 6.25% sales tax from their clients if they perform 'computer system design services and the modification, integration, enhancement, installation or configuration of standardized software.' TIR 13-10 was published to mass.gov on July 25th, 2013 to provide the public a few working days to review the release and make comments."

Comments

Wow

[DeathToBill]

Six days from the announcement of a new tax to being required to collect it? Really? How many businesses can change their processes that quickly?

Re:Wow

[Chris Mattern]

It's not a new tax. 6.25% is the general sales tax in Massachusetts. This is just a ruling clarifying, "Yes, it applies to you guys too."

Re:Wow

[Penguinisto]

It may take about 5 minutes to change tax rates in software, but I suspect it'll take a hell of a lot more than five minutes to update pricing policy, sales processes (and processing), to revise revenue/profit forecasts, modify forms (to point out this new tax, so you don't lump it in with generic sales tax), get the finance folks up to speed...

Re:Wow

[skids]

Note that this effects a bunch of freelancers that are used to providing an untaxed service, and so have no idea how to go about collecting sales taxes and sending the proceeds to the government, since all they did was collect check, report it as SE income, and pay the social security tax on it on a personal income tax form.

States really need revenue

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've followed the Detroit saga, you'll know that many states have made deferred pension deals with their unions that are now coming due as the Boomers retire.

Some states, such as Michigan have deferred liabilities of 241% of their annual revenue. Massachusetts is in the top 10 "bad" list (100%).(source of this is Moody's BTW, and this has been reported in The Economist)

What this means is that retiree benefits will take up an ever expanding part of state expenditures, crowding out education, police, fire, parks, and other benefits that modern citizens have come to expect.

So states are hungry for any revenue, Maryland for example, has set up a rain tax to tax people for the amount of rain that falls on their property (Maryland is in the top 10 "bad" list right next to Massachusetts), so the idea that they'd tax something in a completely arbitrary and crazy way will become the Normal.

You're about to see a wave of municipal bankruptcies all across this country, and local taxes are about to go through the roof.

Enjoy.

Re:Only applies to prewritten software?

[gstoddart]

It also applies to Open Source software. And, what if you're not a reseller -- "you buy Windows, and I'll install and configure it".

Sadly, I'm just going to assume there will be all sorts of problems here -- because most of the time when lawmakers try to pass laws relating to technology, they fail miserably in their understanding of said technology and make a bigger mess of things.

Hey MA programmers! Move to NH.

[odigity]

We're just over the border, and we promise not to pull any shit like this on you.

Why? It's simple: http://freestateproject.org/

Re:Elsewhere

[truthsearch]

That results in the poor paying proportionately more taxes than anyone else since they use almost all of their money to purchase necessities.