A company’s sales of web-based services to physicians to help with management of records, billing, and communications are not subject to Massachusetts sales and use tax. The services are facilitated by software, but the object of the transaction is not the right to use the software. Rather, the object of the transaction is the purchase of information services performed by the seller, database access, and data processing. The services involve the seller’s employees performing a number of tasks such as calling, faxing, emailing, and data entry. This supports the determination that the transaction is a nontaxable sale of services. Physicians and their staff purchasing the services do access the software to a certain extent, but the incidental access and data entry is deemed inconsequential when applying the object of the transaction test so long as it can be shown that substantial services are performed by the seller and the value of those services outweighs the value attributable to the use of the software by the customer. (Letter Ruling 12-5, Massachusetts Department of Revenue, May 7, 2012)