Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!halley!rrt
From: rrt@halley.UUCP (Robert Teisberg)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Software: why does sales tax apply?
Message-ID: <555@halley.UUCP>
Date: 8 Aug 89 00:23:37 GMT
References: <5050@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Reply-To: rrt@halley.UUCP (Robert Teisberg)
Organization: Tandem Computers, Austin, TX
Lines: 28

In article <5050@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> cck@deneb.ucdavis.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) writes:
>I was installing a piece of software today, and in reading through the
>copyright claim, it asserted that the publisher retained ownership and
>the user was only ~renting~.  Nevertheless, my colleague was charged
>~sales~ tax by the vendor, although in California, ~sales~ tax is not
>(as far as I know) collected on ~rent~.
>
>Has anyone tried refusing to pay ~sales~ tax on software where the
>publisher claims that no sale is involved?
>

Check your state sales tax statute.  In Texas, until recently,
software was not subject to sales tax (not because of some legal
fiction about "rental," but because supplying software was considered
a non-taxable service).  Two years ago the Legislature tried to
partially offset its oil-glut-induced revenue shortfall by
specifically assessing sales tax on software.  I wouldn't be surprised
if California did something similar.

In other words, it may not matter whether it's called "rent" or
"sale."  Here, at least, as long as it's called "software," it's
taxable (:-().

-- 
Bob Teisberg @ Tandem Computers, Inc. | ...!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!halley!rrt
14231 Tandem Blvd.                    | soon to be rrt@mpd.tandem.com
Austin, Texas  78728                  | (512) 244-8119
Any resemblance to the opinions of a real person or corporation is concidental.