 Gotta love 'em
What is the name of your state? Washington
Snipes! I need help! I just emerged from an excise tax audit and I think I'm about to slip into psychogenic shock. I have a very small software business (basically me and the cat). We create a multimedia software product (audio, video, graphics, code) then sell it to a publisher. The publisher duplicates our product, packages, markets and sells between 5 and 50,000 copies, sending us a (piddling) royalty to supplement our up-front payment.
The State of Washington (God bless 'em) said today that by producing that software I am providing a custom service to that publisher and "I owe an additional 5k in taxes (at the higher service rate) and please remit soon and thank you for your patronage". I cry "fie!" because a custom service is when I write a single specific code to help a single customer. For example, I use if-then routines to help Sam's dog Fido master higher physics. Manufacturing is when I write code that ten thousand college students discover in the back of their textbooks. Pre-written software, in my book. Ironically, the State of Washington called it manufacturing too when I called them ten years ago and asked them, but a whole lot of good that is going to do me now.
The auditor was really no help – he mumbled something about the 5k, then was out the door with a "you'll hear from us". What do I do? I feel like I should be looking for the gun and the stick-up note. Are they right? Jess | 
04-05-2005, 10:41 PM
Linear Mode
