Can a company charge a sales tax for a service not preformed in the state they are charging for?

Question

The company i work for uses a service to underwrite medical records. They are charging us a sales tax for the state the records are originally from - not my company's state, not necessarily their company's state. All records are sent to TX from our GA office and are analyzed for our own use - we do not send them back to their origination state. Only some of the records are taxed - ones that say NM, HI, TX and CT. The company is actually in TX. Should any of these be services be taxed or should they all be taxed b/c they are all preformed in TX for a GA company? Is it correct for them to charge a NM, HI or CT sales tax just for looking at records that happen to say NM, HI or CT on them?

Answer 1

I'd bet that the company also has nexus (a location, for example) in MN, HI, and CT...which requires them to collect sales tax on those jobs.

You can call them and ask.

< edit >

Hmmm...that is odd.

So they don't have locations in those other states?  What are they doing with the "sales tax" they collected if they aren't filing sales tax reports in those states?  To collect something called "sales tax" and then not send it in is, uh, a problem.  If they know that they are collecting it, but shouldn't be, they should be refunding them back to you.

As far as the Texas sales taxes:  I'd suggest that you call the Texas State Comptroller, describe the situation to them, and see what they have to say.  They will probably want to know if your company has a location in Texas.

http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/ta...