Tennessee Letter Ruling on Data Processing Service

Tennessee issued a letter ruling clarifying that a company headquartered within Tennessee is not subject to Tennessee sales and use tax. The company’s business model consists of comparing user (customer) uploaded data to a proprietary database and providing the customer with any matches discovered. Providing the database was determined to be an information service, and providing the matches was determined to be a data processing service; neither service is taxable under the Tennessee Code. The Department of Revenue did note that the customers used an online portal and/ or API to access the services, however since the use of the portal/ API would be worthless without the non-taxable services, this was considered incidental and would not create a requirement for tax. (TN Department of Revenue, Letter Ruling 22-08 approved by D. Gerregano, Commissioner of Revenue, 10/12/2022)

Posted on December 1, 2022