Just had a survey done on some raw land and there's a line for sales tax. Isn't this a service? Why would there be a sales tax? I'm obviously ignorant on this. Thanks!

Taxable if marking boundaries in Texas, I'm pretty sure.

cena05 said:

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Taxable if marking boundaries in Texas, I'm pretty sure.

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Thanks for the reply!

Sales tax was extended to a lot of 'services,' including surveys, about 20 years ago.

Tax Code Sec. 151.0048. REAL PROPERTY SERVICE.

This lumps us lowly surveyors (that have to have a degree) in with lawn crews and commercial trash collectors. While under the Professional Services Procurement Act we're required to comply with the same RFQ rules as the engineers and architects, who don't pay any sales taxes.

It gets much, much worse when you start looking into the TBPELS rules for professional control of a project and comparing them to the Comptroller's rules on what's taxable. Nobody knows or even agrees when we owe sales tax.

Only about 10% of my work incurs sales tax. I doubt it covers the auditor salaries based on the lack of understanding of my business that had to be explained to the last Comptroller's auditor I saw.