Sales Tax Challenges with Services

“It’s a service! No taxes!” Think again.

Believing that services are not taxable is one of the most pervasive sales tax myths out there.

While it’s true that many services are not taxed in many states, services subject to sales tax are much more common than you think – and it’s a growing trend.

This webinar will examine how sales tax applies to the following service categories – as well as the tax base and any unusual rules that apply:

• Hospitality, including catering and tourism
• Personal care, such as hair, tattoo, massage, and piercing
• Business services: warehousing, fulfillment, and pack and ship services, as well as marketing and security services
• Professional services, such as recruiting, temporary help, accounting, legal, and consulting
• Technology Services, such as installation, software development, streaming services, and training
• Real property: engineering, architecture, repair, maintenance, and grounds keeping

It’s a mixed bag on how each state treats each service category. However, there are several concepts and processes within your control to understand and use as a head start in determining whether or not your services are taxed across the states.

Your taxability can be affected by how you’re drafting contracts or wording your invoices. The presentation of your work or itemization of your bills will impact how a state views something as taxable. This webinar will guide you through real life examples for contract and invoice set-up so you can apply changes as necessary.

You’ll also learn the “true object test” analysis to apply to any of your bundled services so you can discover the true intent of each of your service transactions with confidence.

Your Teaching Staff

In this 90-minute live webinar, sales tax expert Diane Yetter of the Sales Tax Institute will teach you the ins and outs of the taxation of services, including the “how” and “where” so that you know where you stand. She will cover invoice and contract language and terminology, best practices for bundling, sourcing rules, and more using real life examples and case studies so you can see how these concepts apply to your business. Diane will also share the latest state news updates and any law changes that impact service providers.

During the live Q&A portion of the webinar, you can get answers to your specific sales tax questions directly from Diane.

Learning Objectives for this webinar include:

• Discover what types of services are most commonly taxed, where, and in what situations.
• Learn the “true object test” analysis so you can determine (or mitigate) taxation of services in bundled transactions.
• Find out specific contract and invoice presentation guidelines to help you avoid common wordings that can cause your transaction to be considered taxable.
• Learn about the two general rules states use to determine the sourcing for the taxability of services so you know what to look for in state statutes.
• Discover which states tax common professional services, like marketing or human resources.
• Find out how states treat services that support your business activities like warehousing, fulfillment, and pack and ship services.
• Learn how to determine if you have tangible or real property services that are taxed.
• Understand how personal care services like dry-cleaning, photography, and beauty shops could easily be taxed in certain states and/or situations.
• Learn how services in the hospitality industry are treated for sales tax, including catering and tourism-related services.
• Dig into case studies and recent state updates on service taxation across the country to provide important real-life context.