§120 Procedure If No Electronic Database Provided

Summary

Home service providers are protected from paying taxes, fees, or penalties in a State when no electronic address-to-jurisdiction database is provided by the State or its chosen provider, as long as they use an enhanced ZIP code to pick a specific taxing area (like city, county, state) for every address at each tax level and try hard to make sure the address is put into the right taxing area. If an enhanced ZIP code crosses the same level of tax boundaries, the provider must pick one specific area to use for that ZIP code. A change made under section 121 counts as following these rules. It is assumed a provider tried hard enough unless proven otherwise if they can show they spent reasonable resources to build and keep a detailed address database, set up controls to quickly fix wrong assignments, and used all available data about annexations, incorporations, reorganizations, or other boundary changes that matter. These protections last until the later of: 18 months after the nationwide numeric code in section 119(a) is approved by the Federation of Tax Administrators and the Multistate Tax Commission, or 6 months after the State or its designated provider gives the required database.