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Business Taxes Law Guide—Revision 2024
Sales and Use Tax Annotations
A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P R S T U V W X
S
515.0000 Service Enterprises Generally—Regulation 1501
Annotation 515.0065
(a) In General—Service Distinguished from Sale
515.0065 Seismic Data Acquisition and Processing. When the acquisition of seismic data is accomplished by a service company's field crew and includes the extensive involvement of licensed professional engineers exercising their professional judgment in making a wide variety of decisions to assure the most accurate information possible is obtained and the product of these efforts is delivered to the customer in written report form, the true object of the contract is the engineering services and the charges are not subject to tax.
The raw data may be referred by the customer to a processing company for refinement. This procedure involves many discretionary tests and decisions to remove extraneous "noises" and to make the data more accurate and usable. The true object of this contract is the development, through computer manipulation, of original data from raw data furnished by the customer. This constitutes "processing of customer-furnished information," which is nontaxable under Regulation 1502, as is any tangible personal property incidentally transferred therewith.
A single contract for acquisition and processing is also not taxable. 4/16/86.