Dashboard and Personal Website Services Not Taxable in Arkansas

A company that sells products through a network of independent distributors does not need to charge sales tax on sales of dashboard services and personal websites if offers for a price to its distributors. The dashboard service provides access to distributorship activity information, and the personal websites allow distributors to give presentations via mobile devices and to add customers and downline distributors to their shopping cart and online sponsoring. The software, which is downloaded by the distributors from the company’s server, is not subject to Arkansas sales tax so long as the software is not provided to the distributors in any tangible form. Allowing access to online servers is not a specified taxable service in Arkansas. Sales tax does not apply regardless of whether the purchases of dashboard services and personal website services are bundled or separately stated. Fees charged by the company for reports that are accessible online are not subject to sales tax so long as the reports are not printed and sold to the purchaser. Fees charged for paper copies of records constitute taxable sales of tangible personal property.(Revenue Legal Opinion No. 20151103, Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration, January 13, 2016)

Posted on March 23, 2016