The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue (the Department) recently finalized its Information Notice on sourcing of services for purposes of determining the appropriate net income and capital franchise tax apportionment factors.  The guidance also addresses the Department’s views on the sourcing of intangibles under the income producing activity test.  Since Pennsylvania is not a member of the Multistate Tax Compact, it is no surprise that the Department did not wait for the Multistate Tax Commission to complete its model market sourcing regulation before it issued its guidance.

Under the Pennsylvania statute (72 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 7401(3)(2)(a)(16.1)(C)), for tax years beginning after December 31, 2013, receipts from services are to be sourced according to the location where the service is delivered.  If the service is delivered both to a location in and outside Pennsylvania, the sale is sourced to Pennsylvania based upon the percentage of the total value of services delivered to a location in Pennsylvania.  In the case of customers who are individuals (other than sole proprietors), if the state or states of delivery cannot be determined for the customer, the service is deemed to be delivered at the customer’s billing address.  In the case of customers who are not individuals or who are sole proprietors, if the state or states of delivery cannot be determined for the customer, the service is deemed to be delivered at the location from which the service was ordered in the customer’s regular course of operations.  If the location from which the service was ordered in the customer’s regular course of operations cannot be determined, the service is deemed to be delivered at the customer’s billing address.

The statute generated more questions than it answered.  Key terms such as “delivered” and “location” were not defined.  The Department’s Information Notice provides answers to many of taxpayers’ questions.  However, unlike the draft Information Notice released in June 2014, the final Information Notice shies away from providing a succinct definition of “delivery” and resorts to defining the term through various examples.  (For our coverage of the Department’s draft Information Notice, click here.)  However, the Information Notice does define “location” stating that “location” generally means the location of the customer and, thus, delivery to a location not representative of where the customer for the service is located does not represent completed delivery of the service.

The Information Notice is chock full of examples to guide taxpayers.  The Department’s views relating to various scenarios when services are performed remotely on tangible personal property owned by customers are of interest.  If a customer ships a damaged cell phone to a repair facility that repairs and returns it, the Department deems the service to be delivered at the address of the customer.  Contrast that with a situation when a customer drops a car off for repair at a garage and later returns to pick it up.  One may conclude that the service should also be deemed to be delivered at the address of [...]

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