New York State Tax Rulings
Free plain-English summaries of state tax letter rulings and advisory opinions issued in New York, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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Are the fees from a web-based job search and posting platform taxable as software, information services, or are they exempt advertising?
Not taxable. The platform is free to the customers who embed it (no consideration = no taxable sale of software), and the pay-per-click and job-posting fees the operator earns are charges for an adver…
Are hosted, web-accessed investment, trade, and compliance management platforms taxable as prewritten software, or nontaxable information services?
Taxable. The firm's three hosted investment-management products are taxable prewritten software: clients pay annual fees for the right to use, control, and direct software platforms for risk analysis,…
Are fees a website charges professionals to be listed in its online directory taxable as an information service, or are they exempt advertising?
Not taxable. Fees charged to representatives for listing their profile and contact information in an online directory are excluded from New York sales tax as advertising services, not a taxable inform…
Is a personalized one-on-one astrological birth chart reading delivered online a taxable information service in New York?
Not taxable. The Department concluded that personalized, one-on-one astrological birth chart readings sold to premium customers are NOT a taxable information service under Tax Law § 1105(c)(1). Althou…
Which charges for a web-based foreign-exchange trading platform are taxable as software, and which (support, secure tokens, benchmarking reports) are treated differently?
Mostly taxable. The Department concluded that the petitioner's web-based foreign-exchange trading platform is prewritten software, so its receipts for Annual License Fees, Transaction Charges, and mos…
Is a mobile and web analytics service — tracking users on a customer's site and showing the data in a dashboard — taxable in New York as software or as an information service?
Taxable. The Department concluded a mobile/web analytics platform is a taxable information service under Tax Law § 1105(c)(1) — not the sale of software — because the customer's primary purpose is to …
Is a coaching service that administers a DISC behavioral self-assessment and gives each employee a report subject to sales tax?
No. The coach teaches effective listening and communication and, as part of the service, has each employee take a DISC self-assessment and receive a report analyzing their behavioral style. Coaching/f…
Are services to create, host, maintain and optimize a client's mobile website subject to New York sales tax?
No. The company designs, builds, hosts, maintains, and optimizes mobile websites for retailers, all for a fixed monthly fee. Website development — design, creation, and the operation of a site the dev…
Are digital document services — scanning, data capture, validation and cloud storage of a customer's documents — subject to New York sales tax?
No. The provider scans and converts a customer's documents (Product A), captures and validates data from them (Products B and C), and hosts them in the cloud (Product D). Converting documents to PDF w…
Are a company's two online government-RFP services — one that distributes RFPs and one that notifies contractors of bid opportunities — subject to New York sales tax?
One is, one isn't. The Procurement Service, which lets government agencies build and distribute their requests for proposals to a wide pool of contractors, is not an enumerated taxable service, so it …
Are charges for a cloud webcasting and virtual-communications platform — plus its optional add-on services — subject to New York sales tax?
Mostly no. The core charge for the cloud webcasting/webhosting platform is not taxable: hosting events isn't an enumerated service, and the software-driven features (registration pages, webinar tools,…
Is a service that lets each customer log in and run reports on its own vehicle-maintenance data a taxable information service in New York?
No. The service is a non-taxable information service. Although furnishing information is generally taxable, New York excludes information that is personal or individual in nature and not substantially…
Is a service that lets customers send large volumes of email, plus related consulting, subject to New York sales tax?
No. The primary function of the service is letting customers send large quantities of email over the provider's servers, which is a non-taxable email service protected by the federal Internet Tax Free…
Are subscription fees to access an online library of instructional video courses subject to New York sales tax?
No. Subscriptions that let users stream video courses to learn new skills are not tangible personal property and are not a taxable information service, because their purpose is to impart knowledge. Do…
Are a coupon clearinghouse's products, sold to retailers and advertisers, subject to New York sales tax?
No. The primary function of the clearinghouse's products is processing redeemed coupons and handling payments between retailers and advertisers, which is not a taxable service. The prewritten software…
Is a service that automatically pulls, compiles, and reports a client's own internet-advertising performance data subject to New York sales tax?
No. The service is an information service, but it falls within the 'personal or individual' exclusion: each client receives reports built only from its own advertising data, not shared with or compile…
Are a platform's webinar and live-stream products taxable, and what about its optional add-on services?
The core products aren't taxable, but two software add-ons are. Letting customers make presentations available to viewers over the internet — webinars and live streams — isn't a taxable service. Inter…
Is a bank-benchmarking analytics service a taxable information service, and is a custom predictive-model product exempt as custom software?
They split. Product A — a benchmarking service that compares each bank's portfolio performance against a synthetic index built from other participating banks' data — is a taxable information service, …
Are a real-estate listing website's paid agent-promotion products subject to New York sales tax?
No. The three paid products (ad-free featured listings, and buying a share of agent-list/banner views by zip code or city, on web and mobile) all enhance an agent's advertising position on the site, s…
Is a cloud data-storage, backup, file-sharing and sync subscription subject to New York sales tax?
No. The service is not taxable. It is not a sale of prewritten software, because the optional app is free, is not required, and the service is fully usable through any web browser - so customers are n…
Is a service that collects and segments internet-user data for ad targeting a taxable information service?
Yes. The company collects and analyzes data on roughly 700 million internet users (via HTML tags and cookies), groups them into targeting 'segments' and makes those segments available to advertisers. …
Is a real-time web-analytics product that reports a customer's own website traffic subject to sales tax?
No. The product is an information service, but it qualifies for the 'personal or individual' exclusion and is not taxable. The company embeds tracking code on a customer's website, gathers data about …
Are a cloud DNS-security firm's services taxable in New York, does its data center create nexus, and are its software plug-ins a separate taxable sale?
Yes to nexus and to tax. The firm (and its predecessor LLC) has had New York nexus at least since 2006, when it established a data center here -- physical property in the state is more than a slight p…
Which of a broadcast studio's twelve charges to a TV-station customer are subject to New York sales tax?
Only the charges tied to tangible property are taxable; the electronically delivered production services are not. The studio rebroadcasts a Japanese station's content in the U.S. and bills twelve sepa…
Is a hosted IT cost-management service taxable -- as an information service, as software, or both?
It depends on how it's sold. The core 'Line-Item IT Billing' offering is a nontaxable information service: it collects, processes, and reports the customer's own IT-usage data back to that customer. I…
Are a healthcare-standards group's subscription Rapid Recall Exchange and Healthcare Registry internet services subject to NY sales tax?
Yes -- both subscription database services are taxable information services, though the separately sold ID codes are not. Furnishing information -- collecting, compiling, or analyzing information and …
Must a firm that writes radio news advertorials and places them on stations charge sales tax when it emails the client an MP3 copy?
No. The sales of the news advertorials are not subject to sales tax because the firm is providing nontaxable advertising services. The firm writes radio 'news advertorials' (financial-market-style ads…
For a retail merchandising agency's in-store marketing services, which are taxable, and is the whole charge taxable if some services are?
Only the installation work is taxable; itemizing lets you tax just that. Installing signs and assembling mannequins are taxable services of installing or servicing tangible personal property under Tax…
Are an online provider's legal-document services (wills, entity formation, registered agent, trademarks, legal plans) subject to NY sales tax?
No -- none of these services is subject to sales tax, because each one's primary function is producing documents or providing a legal or agent service, not furnishing information, and legal and regist…
Is reformatting electronic data and transmitting it to third parties taxable, and must a mailing-list vendor collect tax from a customer who resells the information?
Reformatting and transmitting data isn't taxable; selling mailing-list information is a taxable information service, exempt only when bought for resale. The combined service of changing the format of …
Are an online marketing company's customer-review platform and its separately billed SaaS analytics product subject to NY sales tax?
The review platform isn't taxable but the analytics product is. The Core Offering -- which captures, moderates, and displays customer feedback on the client's and other retailers' websites -- compiles…
Is a single-sign-on platform that consolidates and lets users search third-party research a taxable NY information service?
Yes. Although it offers single sign-on, the platform's primary function is to collect, consolidate, and present research from multiple providers -- with search, sorting, and saving tools -- which is t…
Are a jeweler's charges for certificates of authenticity for its own pieces subject to NY sales tax?
No. Issuing a certificate of authenticity is an information service, but it falls within the exclusion for information that is personal or individual in nature and is not substantially incorporated in…
Which of an organization's four downloadable products qualify as tax-free e-books in NY, and do multiple-device use or a time-limited license change that?
Only one of the four (the study-guide curriculum) qualifies as an e-book and is therefore not taxable as an information service under Department policy -- and that stays true even though it can be rea…
Are a NY company's R&D services for its out-of-state parent taxable when the resulting reports or samples are delivered outside New York?
No NY sales or use tax is due. The Department didn't need to decide whether the work is a taxable information service or nontaxable research and development, because sales tax is a destination tax: th…
Does an electronic-only investing journal qualify for NY's electronic periodical exemption instead of being a taxable information service?
Yes. An electronic-only investing journal qualifies for the electronic periodical exemption, so the publisher need not collect sales tax. It meets the statutory tests: its predominant purpose is prese…
Is an online assessment software tool taxable, and are the custom reports it generates from a customer's own data taxable?
Two different answers. Licensing the online assessment tool to third-party consultants is a taxable sale of prewritten computer software (sourced to where it's accessed), and the developer's own use o…
Is a credit rating service subject to NY State sales tax or NYC sales tax, and where is it sourced?
It's not a State-taxable information service, but it is taxable under New York City's credit-rating-services tax. Because the firm rates the client's own financial products rather than furnishing info…
Is a service that processes and submits a medical provider's own Medicare quality-reporting data to CMS a taxable NY information service?
No. Validating, analyzing, and submitting a provider's own Medicare quality-reporting data to CMS is an information service, but it's excluded from sales tax because it's personal or individual in nat…
Are sales of e-books delivered electronically over the Internet subject to NY sales and use tax?
No. The company sells electronic books through an online bookstore, delivered over the Internet and stored on the customer's own device. E-books aren't tangible personal property -- they have no physi…
Are a company's customized background and investigative reports taxable as detective services or as information services in NY?
They're taxable -- the only question is under which provision. If preparing a report requires a private-investigator license under General Business Law Article 7, the report is a taxable detective ser…
Are sales of title abstracts taxable in NY, at what rate, and what happens when a customer never pays?
Yes -- since September 1, 2010, an abstract of title is a taxable information service under Tax Law 1105(c)(1) (a Department policy change, TSB-M-10(7)S, to match the case law). The vendor must collec…
Is a law firm's certified abstract of title (or certified continuation) a taxable information service in NY?
No -- it's not taxable. Although the sale of an ordinary abstract of title became a taxable information service on September 1, 2010, a 'guaranteed title search' is treated as an insurance product, no…
Is a certified abstract of title that guarantees the correctness of its search a taxable information service in NY?
No -- it's not taxable. The sale of an ordinary abstract of title became a taxable information service on September 1, 2010, but a 'guaranteed title search' is treated as an insurance product instead.…
Can a title insurance company buy a title abstract for resale, and is tax still owed if the closing is later cancelled?
No to both relief points. A title insurance company that buys a title abstract to prepare a title insurance policy cannot give the abstract vendor a resale certificate (ST-120), because the purchase d…
Are a firm's three financial-pricing 'advice services' taxable information services or nontaxable consulting in NY?
It depends on the service. Advice Service P -- automated derivative-pricing advice generated by applying the firm's proprietary formulas to its common, internally-built database -- is a taxable inform…
Are electronic-discovery litigation support services -- where the vendor processes a client's own documents -- subject to NY sales tax?
No. The vendor collects, processes, searches, and organizes a client's own electronic documents for litigation -- categorizing, de-duplicating, threading emails, and making them searchable -- which ad…
If an association buys information services it both uses itself and resells to its members, how is NY sales tax applied?
Both ways. The geographic, demographic, and mapping data the association buys are taxable information services under Tax Law 1105(c)(1). The association is the end user as to data it uses in its own b…
Which of a railroad IT provider's hosted products are taxable, and how are they sourced for NY sales tax?
They split three ways. Products where the customer uses the provider's hosted software to manipulate its own data are sales of prewritten software (taxable, Tax Law 1101(b)(6)) -- Transportation Manag…
Is a merchant return-authorization (fraud-scoring) service taxable in NY, and what about a linked discount-coupon service?
The return-authorization service is taxable; the discount-coupon service isn't. The authorization service compiles shoppers' return history and runs it through proprietary risk models to recommend whe…
Are a financial data provider's options taxable -- aggregated investor info versus an optional analytics software tool?
Mostly not, but the optional software tool is. The provider gathers and normalizes investor-level portfolio and advisor information from many institutions and delivers it to financial institutions and…
Are 'peer group' market-share analysis services for financial firms taxable in NY?
Yes -- they're taxable information services, and tax must be collected from September 1, 2010. The provider pools data contributed by a consortium of financial firms and gives each customer a report c…
Which fees of a professional-networking site are taxable -- subscriptions, in-network email, job ads, and surveys?
It splits. Premium subscriptions and paid in-network email are taxable information services: they let a customer search the site's member database and contact targeted members -- essentially buying us…
Is an online-advertising analytics/management platform a taxable information service in NY?
No -- it qualifies for the personal/individual exclusion. The platform lets clients monitor, manage, and optimize their online advertising across third-party ad networks; it retrieves, analyzes, and p…
Are a financial-data company's charges for data feeds, online reports, application software, technical/research support, and training subject to NY sales tax?
It depends on the item. The company's data feeds are taxable information services (Tax Law 1105(c)) -- they are compilations drawn from a common database that every subscriber accesses, so the 'person…
Are receipts from a call-tracking service sold to car dealerships subject to NY sales tax?
No. The call-tracking service -- which routes toll-free advertising calls, records the conversations, runs exit surveys, and measures advertising performance for each dealer -- is not taxable. It is N…
Are litigation support / e-discovery services -- and the discs, drives, and files used to deliver them -- subject to NY sales tax?
No, the services aren't taxable, regardless of the media they're delivered on. The provider indexes, sorts, de-duplicates, and adds searchable identifiers to a client's own documents -- which makes it…
Are a company's tenant-screening / credit-reporting services subject only to NYC local sales tax, or to State and local sales tax across New York?
They're taxable as information services under Tax Law 1105(c)(1) (or 1105(c)(9) if delivered electronically), statewide. The company is a consumer reporting agency that resells data from the three nat…
Are website data-mining/warehousing reports and online advertising services subject to NY sales tax?
No -- neither is taxable. The data warehousing/mining reports relate exclusively to the client's own website and the vendor is barred from reselling them, so they qualify for the personal/individual e…
Are web-based retail site-selection reports taxable, and how is the tax sourced to local jurisdictions?
Yes, they're taxable. The reports draw on a common database of demographic and competitive market data that the provider offers to any customer, so they are taxable information services under Tax Law …
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These are official tax letter rulings and advisory opinions issued by New York's revenue authority in response to questions from specific taxpayers about how the tax law applies to their facts. A ruling is binding on the department only for the taxpayer who requested it and cannot be relied on by anyone else, but it is strong evidence of how the state reads the law. Every ruling above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original source.