Sale of Roaming Services Not Subject to Tax in Florida

Sales of roaming services by a Florida mobile communications services provider were not subject to Florida communications services tax because the services were provided to customers whose “places of primary use” were outside the state of Florida. Florida communications services tax and local communications services tax apply to sales of all mobile communications services provided to a customer by a home service provider if the customer’s service address is located within Florida. The taxpayer provided mobile communications services to end users under an agreement with the end users’ home service provider, which was a foreign carrier. The end users were billed by their home service provider. Because of this, the services were deemed to be provided by the home service provider rather than by the Florida taxpayer. Since the customers’ “places of primary use” service addresses were not in Florida, the taxpayer’s sales of roaming services to the customers were not subject to communications services tax. (Technical Assistance Advisement, No. 15A19-001, Florida Department of Revenue, January 7, 2015)

Posted on February 17, 2015