Cloud services will face tax woes U.S. states have different tax policies

In the past few years, there have been many rules in the United States about how to tax cloud services. But a recent rule by Utah State is one of the closest decisions to the subject. Experts say this could start a wave of more states expanding tax policies. More states are seeking to expand their policy of taxing the rapidly growing http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/14372.html "> Cloud Services".

Chor Watfield Joel Waterfield, senior manager of the consultancy and finance company Grant Thornton, said states are increasingly seeking to tax cloud services for a simple reason: the rise of E-commerce and cloud computing services has eroded the traditional way in which they have relied in the past. That's what states are doing now, Waterfield says. When they lost millions of dollars in the deal, they felt they needed to compensate for some tax revenue.

Kelley Miller, Reed Smith's law firm, says more states are issuing rules for taxing cloud services. Kelly Miller Last July, only 4 states issued rules on how to tax cloud services. By the end of 2011, that figure had increased by one-fold, and 6 States had issued such a provision this year.

Utah State is the latest example. In 2010, a business conference and desktop access tool provider with no disclosure name asked the Utah State Tax Committee Whether it was paying sales tax for cloud-based business collaboration and online conferencing SaaS products. This product requires end users to download a thin client application to access cloud-based services. In February 2012, Utah State stipulated that the charges constituted the service sales of the network service to pay sales tax. This seems to imply that access to SaaS applications is sufficient to take responsibility for paying taxes. This is indeed a precursor to the cloud computing tax. Many states may use the Utah State as a template for future tax on cloud services.

Utah State's rules are different from those that are already close to taxing the cloud, because it includes services that charge users for access to the software. Other states have a more stringent definition, primarily by delivering software to users from providers. For example, Kansas has stated in a series of regulations over the past few years that when a SaaS application is downloaded to access the application, it is taxed because there is a software delivery.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)