Citing the significant increase in new home building in a recent edition of South Dakota Taxation News, the South Dakota Department of Revenue and Regulation discussed the addition of a bid calculator for contractors. The Department stated that since they have limited time to work with contractors, they found it necessary to create the bid calculator. The calculator is a form that can be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader; this form will provide the proper tax amount based on the figures entered into the form by the user. The publication further discussed the responsibilities of specialty builders. Specialty builders in the State of South Dakota are required to have a contractor’s excise tax license, are responsible for paying sales or use tax on all construction materials, and are responsible for remitting the 2% contractor’s excise tax at the time of closing, if sold within four years of completion. The publication also discussed other sales and use tax issues including recent legislative updates by the state in regards to the SSTP. (South Dakota Taxation News, South Dakota Department of Revenue and Regulation, January 2005)