In This Issue:

- State Tribunal Affirms Decision Imposing Sales Tax on Information Services

- Appellate Division Upholds Applicability of Sales Tax to Environmental Testing and Monitoring Services

- Bulk Sale Liability for Sales Tax Upheld Based on Transfer of Intangible Assets

- ALJ Allows Personal Income Taxpayers to Claim Losses Related to Inactive Business

- NYC ALJ Agrees Broker-Dealer Floor Clerk Is Employee and Not Subject to UBT

- Insights in Brief

- Excerpt from State Tribunal Affirms Decision Imposing Sales Tax on Information Services

The New York State Tax Appeals Tribunal has affirmed an ALJ decision holding that certain data analysis services performed for members of the financial services industry constituted the furnishing of a taxable information service for sales tax purposes. The decision sheds light on the scope of the important sales tax exclusion for information that is “personal or individual in nature.” Matter of SunGard Securities Fin. LLC, DTA No. 824336 (N.Y.S. Tax App. Trib., Mar. 16, 2015).

Facts. SunGard Securities Finance LLC (“SunGard”) provides consulting and related data processing services to securities brokerdealers, banks, and other financial institutions. The primary focus of the appeal concerned SunGard’s “Lending Pit” service, in which SunGard obtains, compiles, analyzes, processes, and maintains customer trade data on a daily basis. Customers can view their own current data compared to their historical data over a secure Internet connection using SunGard’s proprietary web-based application. Customers also have the ability to view how their data compares with benchmarks formulated by SunGard using data obtained from all SunGard’s customers. The Lending Pit service also incorporates market data from public sources to allow SunGard’s customers to compare their own data to the market data. Data reports are delivered to customers over the Internet, based substantially on the customer’s own data, which is confidential, and those reports are never sold or marketed to other parties. A customer cannot access confidential individual data of other SunGard customers.