The Washington Department of Revenue has issued new guidelines on when companies can apply the state’s multiple points of use (MPU) sales tax exemption to sales of software maintenance agreements. A software maintenance agreement may qualify if (1) the software can be used both inside and outside of the state of Washington simultaneously, (2) if any included services directly support the software being offered, and (3) the agreement does not include any other taxable items.

The bottom line: Software companies can now exempt their bundled maintenance agreements from Washington sales tax when customers use the software across multiple states, creating substantial savings on multi-state transactions.

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