Is washing and disinfecting sports and protective gear (hockey pads, helmets, horse blankets, fire turnout gear) in an industrial machine a taxable 'maintaining/servicing' service or an exempt 'laundering' service?

Plain-English summary

Scott Hinman runs Syracuse Clean Gear, a business that cleans and dries horse blankets, fire turnout gear, and hockey/football protective equipment (pads, gloves, helmets, skates) in a specialized industrial washing machine. The machine's drum is divided into separate compartments so items can be washed with special detergents, disinfected, sanitized, and deodorized without being damaged or mixed with other customers' gear, through a 2-to-2.5-hour wash/spin/rinse/dry cycle.

New York taxes "installing, maintaining, servicing, or repairing" tangible personal property — a broad category that would normally cover an equipment-cleaning business. But the same statute carves out an exclusion for laundering, dry-cleaning, tailoring, weaving, pressing, shoe repairing, and shoe shining, which are not taxed at all. The Department had already extended "laundering" beyond clothes to bed linens, rugs, drapes, and upholstery (cloth, vinyl, or leather) in earlier rulings. Applying that same reasoning here, the Department held that cleaning the fabric, leather, and rubber portions of horse blankets, turnout gear, and hockey pants is clearly laundering. For gear with a hard outer shell over fabric padding (helmets, skates, shoulder/shin pads), the exemption covers cleaning the fabric, liner, and padding — the incidental cleaning effect on the hard shell doesn't change the answer, since customers use the service for the fabric/padding cleaning, not for cleaning the shell. Bottom line: the whole service is exempt laundering, and Petitioner doesn't have to collect sales tax on it.

What this means for you

Sports-equipment cleaning, uniform, and gear-servicing businesses

If your service is primarily about cleaning, disinfecting, sanitizing, or deodorizing the fabric, leather, rubber, or padded portions of items — even non-clothing items like sports pads, helmets, or animal blankets — it can qualify as exempt "laundering" rather than taxable "maintaining or servicing," as long as any incidental effect on hard-shell or non-fabric portions isn't the reason customers use the service.

Fire departments, sports teams, and equestrian facilities that outsource gear cleaning

This ruling confirms that vendors providing this kind of specialized cleaning service to you should not be charging you sales tax on it, provided their process matches this fact pattern (cleaning fabric/padded portions, not repairing or servicing the hard components).

Accountants and tax professionals

The key legal distinction is between § 1105(c)(3)'s broad "maintaining, servicing, or repairing" tax and its narrower § 1105(c)(3)(ii) laundering exclusion, which the Department has consistently read to reach any fabric/textile-based cleaning (bed linens, rugs, drapes, upholstery — cloth, vinyl, or leather) rather than only wearable clothing. Watch for the same analysis wherever a client cleans non-clothing textile or padded items.

Common questions

Q: Is cleaning sports equipment like hockey pads or helmets taxable in New York?
A: Not when the service is really cleaning, disinfecting, sanitizing, and deodorizing the fabric, leather, or padded portions of the gear — that's exempt "laundering," not taxable maintaining or servicing.

Q: Does the laundering exemption only apply to clothing?
A: No. The Department has applied it to bed linens, kitchen linens, rugs, drapes, and upholstery (cloth, vinyl, or leather) in prior rulings, and extended it here to sports/protective gear and horse blankets.

Q: What if the item has a hard plastic shell, like a helmet?
A: The exemption still covers cleaning the fabric, liner, and padding inside the shell, as long as any cleaning effect on the hard shell itself is incidental and isn't the reason customers use the service.

Q: Can another gear-cleaning business rely on this ruling directly?
A: No. This Advisory Opinion binds the Department only as to Scott Hinman/Syracuse Clean Gear and the specific facts described. A business with a different process (for example, one that also repairs or replaces hard components) would need its own analysis.

Citations and references

Statutes and regulations:

• Tax Law § 1105(c)(3) (tax on maintaining, servicing, or repairing tangible personal property)
• Tax Law § 1105(c)(3)(ii) (laundering/dry-cleaning/tailoring exclusion)
• 20 NYCRR 527.5 (maintaining, servicing, and repairing regulations)

Prior opinions cited:

• Matter of Rando Enterprises, Decision of the St Tax Comm, Dec. 23, 1971, STM 72-20
• Linen Systems for Hospitals, Inc., Adv Op St Tx Comm, September 25, 1981, TSB-A-81(14)S
• Broome Steam Carpet Cleaning Inc., Adv Op Comm T&F, November 16, 1987, TSB-A-87(42)S
• Donald Schapiro, Adv Op Comm T&F, March 1, 1994, TSB-A-94(8)S

Source

• Landing page: https://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/advisory_opinions/sales_ao_2008.htm
• Opinion: https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/advisory_opinions/sales/a08_8s.pdf

Original ruling text

New York State Department of Taxation and Finance

TSB-A-08(8)S
Sales Tax
February 14, 2008

Office of Tax Policy Analysis
Taxpayer Guidance Division
STATE OF NEW YORK
COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION AND FINANCE
ADVISORY OPINION

PETITION NO. S061228B

On December 28, 2006, the Department of Taxation and Finance received a Petition for
Advisory Opinion from Scott Hinman, Syracuse Clean Gear, 8762 Lovere Trail, Cicero,
New York 13039. Petitioner, Scott Hinman, provided additional information pertaining to the
Petition on March 19, 2007.
The issue raised by Petitioner is whether Petitioner is required to collect sales tax on
receipts from the services described below.
Petitioner submitted the following facts as the basis for this Advisory Opinion.
Petitioner operates a business that cleans and dries various items, including but not
limited to horse blankets, fire turnout gear, hockey pads, hockey gloves, hockey pants, sport
helmets, skates, and football pads. These items are either cloth, vinyl fabric, leather, or rubber
(e.g., horse blankets, certain fire turnout gear, hockey gloves) or are constructed with a fabric
liner and foam padding with an outer hard shell (e.g., hockey pads, sport helmets, skates, football
pads). During use, the fabric and padded portions of these various items may become
contaminated with sweat, blood, or other contaminants and may then become breeding grounds
for bacteria, mold, and fungus.
Petitioner washes these items in an industrial-type washing machine in water mixed with
special chemical detergents specifically designed to clean the fabric and padded portions of these
items. The washing machine consists of a cylindrical drum similar to a conventional front
loading washing machine; however, the drum is divided into triangularly shaped compartments
(similar to pieces of a pie) that are accessed separately by a door on the front of the machine.
This allows the items being cleaned to be placed in mesh bags and inserted tightly into the
compartments, preventing the items from being damaged during the machine’s cycles and
keeping them separate from other items being cleaned. Once the machine is loaded, the drum
rotates, exposing the compartments and their contents to the detergent-water mixture. The items
go through wash, spin, rinse, and dry cycles, the total of which takes 2 to 2 and one-half hours.
Such washing is performed primarily to clean, disinfect, sanitize, and deodorize either the items
themselves or the fabric, liners, and padded portions of the items.
Applicable law and regulations
Section 1105 of the Tax Law provides, in part:
On and after June first, nineteen hundred seventy-one, there is hereby imposed
and there shall be paid a tax . . . upon:

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TSB-A-08(8)S
Sales Tax
February 14, 2008

(a) The receipts from every retail sale of tangible personal property, except as
otherwise provided in this article.
*

*

*

(c) The receipts from every sale, except for resale, of the following services:
*

*

*

(3) Installing tangible personal property, excluding a mobile home, or
maintaining, servicing or repairing tangible personal property, including a mobile home,
not held for sale in the regular course of business, whether or not the services are
performed directly or by means of coin-operated equipment or by any other means, and
whether or not any tangible personal property is transferred in conjunction therewith,
except:
*
*
*
(ii) any receipts from laundering, dry-cleaning, tailoring, weaving, pressing, shoe
repairing and shoe shining;
Section 527.5 of the Sales and Use Tax Regulations provides, in part:
(a) Imposition. (1) The tax is imposed on receipts from every sale of the services
of installing, maintaining, servicing or repairing tangible personal property, by any means
including coin-operated machines, whether or not any tangible personal property is
transferred in conjunction with the services.
*

*

*

(3) Maintaining, servicing and repairing are terms used to cover all activities that
relate to keeping tangible personal property in a condition of fitness, efficiency, readiness
or safety or restoring it to such condition.
*

*

*

Example 5: The charge for washing an automobile is taxable, whether the
washing is performed manually or by a coin-operated machine.
*
(b) Exemptions.

*

*

*

*

*

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Sales Tax
February 14, 2008

(3) Tax is not imposed on the services of laundering, dry-cleaning, tailoring,
weaving, pressing, shoe repairing, and shoe shining. For example, alterations to clothing,
although considered to be maintaining, servicing, or repairing property, are excluded
from tax because they are tailoring. This would include tailoring performed either by an
independent tailor or seamstress, or by a tailor or seamstress employed by the vendor of
the clothing so long as the vendor’s charge for the tailoring is reasonable and separately
stated from the charge for the clothing itself, and regardless of whether the clothing
qualifies for the exemption from tax under section 1115(a)(30) of the Tax Law.
However, when a person provides raw materials to a tailor or seamstress and the tailor or
seamstress produces an article of clothing for the person, the tailor’s or seamstress’ work
constitutes the production of clothing (which is not tailoring); and the charge for such
service would be subject to State and local sales and use tax. . . .
Opinion
Section 1105(c)(3) of the Tax Law imposes sales tax on receipts from the services of
installing, maintaining, servicing or repairing tangible personal property. The exclusion from
such tax for laundering and dry-cleaning set forth in section 1105(c)(3)(ii) of the Tax Law and
section 527.5(b)(3) of the Regulations applies not only to services performed on apparel but also
to the cleaning of bed linens, kitchen linens, rugs, drapes, and upholstery, whether the upholstery
is cloth, vinyl fabric, or leather. See Matter of Rando Enterprises, Decision of the St Tax Comm,
Dec. 23, 1971, STM 72-20; Linen Systems for Hospitals, Inc., Adv Op St Tx Comm, September
25, 1981, TSB-A-81(14)S; Broome Steam Carpet Cleaning Inc., Adv Op Comm T & F,
November 16, 1987, TSB-A-87(42)S; Donald Schapiro, Adv Op Comm T & F, March 1, 1994,
TSB-A-94(8)S.
Petitioner’s business cleans and dries various items, including, but not limited to, horse
blankets, fire turnout gear, hockey pads, hockey gloves, hockey pants, sport helmets, skates, and
football pads. The items cleaned are cloth, vinyl fabric, leather, and rubber, and are sometimes
constructed with fabric liners and foam padding that may be connected to a hard outer shell.
Petitioner washes these items in an industrial-type washing machine in water mixed with special
chemical detergents designed to clean the fabric and padded portions of these various items.
Petitioner's service is to clean, disinfect, sanitize, and deodorize the fabric, rubber, and
leather items or the fabric, liners, and padding of items. The cleaning of certain of the items
described by Petitioner (horse blankets, fire turnout gear, hockey pants) is clearly laundering as
contemplated in section 1105(c)(3)(ii) of the Tax Law. If the fabric, liners, and padding of the
other items cleaned by Petitioner were removable from the helmets, skates, shin guards, shoulder
pads, etc., without damage to the items in the process and were separately laundered, the receipts
from such laundering services would be excluded from the sales tax pursuant to section
1105(c)(3)(ii). Any cleaning effect that Petitioner's services have on the non-fabric or non­
padded portions of such items is incidental and is not the reason that Petitioner's services are
used by its customers.

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TSB-A-08(8)S
Sales Tax
February 14, 2008

Petitioner cleans, disinfects, sanitizes, and deodorizes fabric, leather and rubber items or
the fabric, liners, and padding of items. These services constitute a laundering service as
contemplated in section 1105(c)(3)(ii) of the Tax Law. Accordingly, receipts from the sale of
such services are not subject to sales tax.

DATED: February 14, 2008

NOTE:

/s/
Jonathan Pessen
Tax Regulations Specialist IV
Taxpayer Guidance Division

An Advisory Opinion is issued at the request of a person or entity. It is
limited to the facts set forth therein and is binding on the Department only
with respect to the person or entity to whom it is issued and only if the
person or entity fully and accurately describes all relevant facts. An
Advisory Opinion is based on the law, regulations, and Department
policies in effect as of the date the Opinion is issued or for the specific
time period at issue in the Opinion.