marketplace providers Archives

marketplace providers

Texas Comptroller Proposes Rule Changes Cementing Tax on 130% of Marketplace Sales

by Stephen P. Kranz, Mark Nebergall and Jonathan C. Hague | Sep 17, 2024 | Audits, Nationwide Importance, Sales Tax, Tax Base, Texas, Transaction Taxes

In a controversial move, the Texas Comptroller is poised to amend Rule 3.330, Data Processing Services, effectively rewriting the rules to favor the contentious stance it has adopted in recent audits and litigation. This proposed amendment, which aims to cement the aggressive stance the Comptroller has taken in audits and litigation that a marketplace provider’s commission-based earnings are taxable “data processing services,” represents a significant departure from long-standing practices and highlights a disturbing trend of what is effectively a retroactive regulatory adjustment.

A LOOK AT THE PROPOSED CHANGES

The crux of the proposed amendment is the addition of paragraph (b)(5) to Rule 3.330, which the Comptroller explains is being added “to clarify that marketplace providers provide data processing services to their customers as they enter, retrieve, search, manipulate, and store data or information in the course of their business.” New paragraph (b)(5) provides that:

Marketplace provider services may be included in taxable data processing services when they involve the computerized entry, retrieval, search, compilation, manipulation, or storage of data or information provided by the purchaser or the purchaser’s designee. For example, services to store product listings and photographs, maintain records of transactions, and to compile analytics are taxable data processing services.

This new paragraph specifically targets the commissions that marketplace providers charge for facilitating sales, taxing them separately from the underlying transactions themselves. This is not just an expansion of the tax base; it’s a redefinition of what constitutes a taxable service, applying it in ways that were never intended under previous interpretations of the law that considered such commissions nontaxable auctioneer/brokerage fees.

WHY THIS AMENDMENT IS PROBLEMATIC

The Comptroller’s approach is problematic for several reasons, including:

Effective Retroactivity. The proposed amendment seeks to justify an aggressive (and questionable) agency position that the Comptroller has only recently begun to assert in audits and litigation after it quietly revoked a long-standing administrative ruling in 2020. The revocation of this ruling in 2020, without public notice or legislative approval, was a stark deviation from established practices. By changing the rules after the fact, the proposed amendment undermines the stability and predictability of the law.
Double Taxation. If a marketplace facilitates a sale where a consumer pays $100 and the marketplace earns a $30 commission, the proposed amendment would not only tax the $100 transaction but also the $30 commission. This results in an effective tax on 130% of marketplace sales, with the additional 30% a double tax on the portion of the sales proceeds paid to the marketplace provider as a commission. Under this scheme, the Comptroller is demanding that marketplace providers pay tax on 130% of the sales price and charge the consumer for tax on the 100% and the seller for the 30%.
Discriminatory Tax Under ITFA. The proposed amendment subjects commissions earned by online marketplace providers to taxation as data processing services while similar services provided offline, such as commissions earned by auctioneers of oil and gas leases, consignment stores, and real estate agents using [...]

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Texas Taxing 130% of Marketplace Sales

by Stephen P. Kranz, Mark Nebergall and Eric D. Carstens | Oct 3, 2023 | Audits, Nationwide Importance, Sales Tax, Texas, Transaction Taxes

Proving that everything is bigger in Texas, the state’s Comptroller is now assessing marketplace providers on 130% of their sales. It seems a sales tax on 100% was not big enough for tax officials in the Lone Star State. The additional 30% is a tax on the portion of the product sales price kept by marketplace providers. Talk about double dipping…

Like all states following the Wayfair decision, Texas adopted a marketplace law in 2019 that required marketplace providers to charge tax on 100% of the sales price for products sold over the platform by third-party sellers. Apparently unsatisfied, the Texas Comptroller has decided to assess tax on 130% of marketplace sales, with the additional 30% a double tax on the portion of the sales proceeds paid to the marketplace provider as a commission.

In most marketplaces, the provider charges a commission for allowing a third-party seller to use the platform and its services, like advertising and access to the platform’s user base. As most commissions are typically in the 30% range, Texas is demanding that marketplace providers pay tax on 130% of the sales price and charge the consumer for tax on the 100% and the seller for the 30%.

Without notifying the public, Texas is asserting, on audit, that these commissions are taxable. This position is contrary to a long-standing administrative ruling that was issued in 2012 and quietly revoked by the Texas Comptroller in 2020.

A quick example illustrates how aggressive this position is and the negative impact it will have on marketplace sellers in Texas: Take a book collector in Austin who is selling used books through a marketplace provider and sells a $100 rare Bible to a customer in Dallas. Historically, the marketplace provider would charge an 8% sales tax on the $100 Bible and send that $8 to the Texas Comptroller.[1] The marketplace provider would then take its $30 commission and send the balance of $70 to the local bookseller.

Now, the Texas Comptroller is telling the marketplace provider, on audit, that the $30 commission it received is separately subject to the sales tax. The marketplace provider in the example should have collected an additional $2.40 in sales tax on its receipt of the commission, resulting in an effective sales tax rate on the transaction of 10.4% (again, with no legislative authority or change behind this view). Instead of getting $70 in revenue, the bookseller will only receive the net after sales tax, or $67.60.[2] While this reduction may not seem like much, it will be the difference between being profitable and losing money for some Texas-based sellers. For the Texas Comptroller to make this policy change without legislative blessing—and while the state is enjoying a record budget surplus—should raise alarm bells.

How does the Texas Comptroller get there? First, it deems the commission payment a transaction separate and distinct from the underlying sale of the Bible in the above example. Second, it looks at the services the marketplace provider offered [...]

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New York State FY 2018 Budget Bill: Sales Tax Highlights

by McDermott Will & Emery and McDermott Will & Emery | Jan 31, 2017 | Audits, Constitutional Issues, New York, Nexus, Procedure, Transaction Taxes

On January 16, Governor Cuomo introduced the 2018 New York State Executive Budget Legislation. The bill proposes a number of changes to the New York State sales tax law. Below is a summary of the highlights.

Sales and Use Tax

“Marketplace Providers”

The governor’s bill proposes to impose sales tax registration and collection requirements, traditionally imposed on vendors, on “marketplace providers.” This provision is essentially an effort to obtain sales tax on sales to New York customers that make purchases over the internet from companies that have no physical presence in New York and do not collect sales tax in New York when those companies make sales through online marketplaces. In the governor’s Memorandum of Support of this bill, he affirmatively states that “the bill does not expand the rules concerning sales tax nexus”. Although, as noted below, this claim may not be true.

The bill effectively shifts the sales tax collection burden from the traditional vendor to the marketplace provider. The bill defines marketplace provider as “a person who, pursuant to an agreement with a marketplace seller, facilitates sales of tangible personal property by such marketplace seller or sellers.”

A person “facilitates a sale of tangible personal property” if the person meets both of the following conditions:

(i) such person provides the forum by which the sale takes place, including a shop, store, or booth, an internet website, a catalog, or a similar forum; and

(ii) such person or an affiliate of such person collects the receipts paid by a customer to a marketplace seller for a sale of tangible personal property.

The bill caveats that “a person who facilitates sales exclusively by means of the internet is not a marketplace provider for a sales tax quarter when such person can show that it has facilitated less than one hundred million dollars of sales annually for every calendar year after [2015].”

Unlike the definition of the term “vendor” in the current Tax Law, the definition of “marketplace provider” does not contain a doing business or physical presence component. Accordingly, despite the governor’s assertion that the bill does not expand the rules concerning sales tax nexus, this provision may expand the sales tax nexus rules by potentially imposing a sales tax collection obligation on marketplace providers that do not have a physical presence in New York.

In an effort to minimize the number of entities with a collection requirement, the bill provides that if a marketplace seller obtains a certificate of collection from the marketplace provider, it is not required to collect sales tax as a vendor. The bill caveats that if the marketplace provider and the marketplace seller are affiliated parties, and the marketplace provider fails to collect the tax, the marketplace seller will remain liable for the sales tax. For such purposes, parties are affiliated if they have as little as five percent of common ownership.

The proposed legislation would not permit marketplace sellers that sell to customers in New York through a [...]

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Inside the New York Budget Bill: Proposed Sales Tax Amendments

by Emily Townsend | Mar 25, 2015 | New York, Sales Tax, Transaction Taxes

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 2015-2016 New York State Executive Budget Bill (Budget Bill) contains several important revenue measures, including, but not limited to, technical corrections to the 2014 overhaul of New York State’s Corporate Franchise Tax, conformity of the New York City General Corporation Tax to the revised New York State Corporate Franchise Tax, and several significant changes to New York’s sales and use tax statutes. This article will address the Budget Bill’s proposed sales and use tax changes. Several of these changes, while touted by Governor Cuomo as “closing certain sales and use tax avoidance strategies” are much broader and, if enacted, will have a significant impact on the sales and use tax liabilities resulting from routine corporate and partnership formations and reorganizations.

Read the full article.

Inside the New York Budget Bill: Proposed Sales Tax Amendments

by McDermott Will & Emery | Feb 16, 2015 | New York, Sales Tax

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s 2015–2016 New York State Executive Budget Bill proposes several significant changes to New York’s sales and use tax statutes. Several of these changes, while touted by the governor as “closing certain sales and use tax avoidance strategies,” are much broader and, if enacted, will have a significant impact on the sales and use tax liabilities resulting from routine corporate and partnership formations and reorganizations.

Read the full article.