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Ezel / Tax Rulings / FL
FL TAA 01A-005 Sales and Use Tax 2001-01-08

Were charges for designing, hosting, and maintaining funeral-home and memorial websites subject to Florida sales tax?

Short answer: No. Charges for designing, building, hosting, and maintaining funeral-home websites were not subject to Florida sales tax. The same result applied to a single fee for a two-year memorial website and later annual maintenance fees.

Apply this to your situation

This page answers the general question as of 2001. Ezel answers yours, under current Florida tax law, with citations.

Currency note: this ruling is from 2001
Subsequent statutory amendments, regulation changes, court decisions, or later rulings may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current tax advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, rate, or position mentioned here.
Disclaimer: This is an official Florida Technical Assistance Advisement for the redacted internet provider, funeral-home websites, design and build work, hosting and maintenance, monthly bundled fees, online obituaries and tributes, bereavement communications, two-year memorial-site fee, and later annual maintenance. Under section 213.22, it binds the Department only for those services and charges. Different software, transferred property, equipment, telecommunications, advertising, data product, licensing, bundled item, customer use, or later law could change the result.
About this page: The plain-English summary, reader guidance, and Q&A below were written by Ezel based on the official state tax ruling. The original ruling (linked on this page as a PDF) is the authoritative source for any reliance.
View original ruling (PDF)

Subject

Web Hosting and Maintenance Services

Plain-English summary

Florida sales tax did not apply to the provider's web design, hosting, and maintenance charges. The provider built and maintained funeral-home websites under monthly agreements and offered bereaved customers memorial websites for a single two-year fee followed by optional annual maintenance.

The Department treated both revenue streams as nontaxable website services under Chapter 212 on the facts presented.

What this means for you

This ruling addressed service charges for the described hosted websites. It did not decide a transaction involving separately transferred software, equipment, telecommunications, or another taxable component.

Common questions

Q: Were monthly funeral-home website fees taxable? No.

Q: Were memorial-site setup and maintenance fees taxable? No.

Q: Did the ruling address separately sold software or hardware? No.

Citations and references

  • Fla. Stat. ch. 212 — Florida sales and use tax
  • Fla. Stat. § 213.22 — Technical Assistance Advisements

Source

Original ruling text

SUMMARY

QUESTION: Is the service of web designing, hosting, and
maintenance of web sites subject to sales tax?

ANSWER - Based on Facts Below: No. The service of web
designing, hosting, and maintenance of web sites is not
subject to sales tax under the provisions of Chapter 212,
F.S.

Jan 08, 2001

Re: Technical Assistance Advisement 01A-005
Web Hosting and Maintenance Services
Section 212.08(7)(v), F.S.
Taxpayer: XXX ("Taxpayer")
FEI No.: XX

Dear:

This response is to your petition of October 24, 2000,
requesting the Department's issuance of a Technical Assistance
Advisement (TAA) pursuant to s. 213.22, Florida Statutes (F.S.),
and Chapter 12-11, Florida Administrative Code (F.A.C.),
regarding the referenced Taxpayer and matter. The Department
has carefully examined your request and supporting documents and
finds them to be in order.

BACKGROUND

Taxpayer is a provider of web sites to funeral homes and two
memorial products for the bereaved through the Internet.
Taxpayer has produced a cyberspace product which simplifies
funeral arrangements, facilitates the creation of online
obituaries, tributes, and e-mail communications. Taxpayer also
builds web sites for funeral homes and provides complete web
site hosting and maintenance. With your request, you submitted
a sample "[Taxpayer] Web Site Hosing and Maintenance Agreement -

Funeral Home and/or Cemetery." This agreement provides that
Taxpayer will "design, build, deliver, host and maintain a
first-class Web site" for the funeral home under which it has
entered into agreement.

Taxpayer charges the funeral homes a monthly fee that includes
charges for hosting and maintenance. With regard to the
bereaved, Taxpayer charges a single fee for a two-year web site
memorializing the life of the departed. After that initial twoyear period, the web site can be maintained for an annual fee
per year.

REQUESTED ADVISEMENT AND TAXPAYER'S POSITION

On behalf of your client, you have requested that the Department
issue an opinion on the taxability of the revenues generated by
Taxpayer in its web designing, hosting, and maintenance of web
sites for its customers.

LAW AND DISCUSSION

Charges for designing, hosting, and maintaining web sites on the
Internet are not subject to sales tax under the provisions of
Chapter 212, F.S. Taxpayer is not required to collect tax on
its charges to customers for web site designing, hosting, or
maintenance for a funeral home or on its charges to customers
for web sites memorializing of the life of the departed.

This response constitutes a Technical Assistance Advisement
under s. 213.22, F.S., which is binding on the Department only
under the facts and circumstances described in the request for
this advice as specified in s. 213.22, F.S. Our response is
predicated on those facts and the specific situation summarized
above. You are advised that subsequent statutory or
administrative rule changes or judicial interpretations of the
statutes or rules upon which this advice is based may subject
similar future transactions to a different treatment than
expressed in this response.

You are further advised that this response, your request and
related backup documents are public records under Chapter 119,

F.S., which are subject to disclosure to the public under the
conditions of s. 213.22, F.S. Confidential information must be
delted before public disclosure. In an effort to protect
confidentiality, we request you provide the undersigned with an
edited copy of your request for Technical assistance Advisement,
the backup material and this response, deleting names,
addresses, and any other details which might lead to
identification of the taxpayer. Your request should be received
by the Department within 15 days of the date of this letter.

Sincerely,

Janet L. Young
Tax Law Specialist

JLY/pb
Control No. 43055

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