Wis. Admin. Code § Tax 11.66
(1) Definitions. In this section:
(r) “Mobile telecommunications service” means a mobile telecommunications service under 4 USC 116 to 126, as amended by P.L. 106-252, the Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act. “Mobile telecommunications service” is defined in 4 USC 116 to 126, as amended by P.L. 106-252, to mean commercial mobile radio service, as defined in 47 CFR 20.3 as in effect on June 1, 1999. “Commercial mobile radio service” is defined in 47 CFR 20.3 to mean a mobile service that is either of the following:
1. A mobile service that is all of the following:
(zk) “Service address” as defined in s. 77.51 (17m), Stats., means any of the following:
(zp) “Telecommunications services” as defined in s. 77.51 (21n), Stats., means electronically transmitting, conveying, or routing voice, data, audio, video, or other information or signals to a point or between or among points. “Telecommunications services” includes the transmission, conveyance, or routing of such information or signals in which computer processing applications are used to act on the content’s form, code, or protocol for transmission, conveyance, or routing purposes, regardless of whether the service is referred to as a voice over Internet protocol service or classified by the federal communications commission as an enhanced or value-added nonvoice data service. “Telecommunications services” does not include any of the following:
(2) Taxable services. Receipts that are subject to Wisconsin sales and use tax include receipts from the following services, if the services are sourced to Wisconsin as provided in sub. (3):
(a) Telecommunications services, including the following:
(b) Ancillary services, including the following:
(c) Internet access services.
Note: Sales of internet access services are not subject to Wisconsin sales or use tax after June 30, 2020.
(d) Telecommunications message services that consist of recording telecommunications messages and transmitting them to the purchaser of the service or at that purchaser’s direction, but not including services that are taxable under par. (a), (b), or (c), or services that are incidental, as defined in s. 77.51 (5), Stats., to another service that is not taxable under subch. III of ch. 77, Stats., and sold to the purchaser of the incidental service. Telecommunications message services include the following:
1. Nonmechanical telephone answering services.
Examples: 1) A real estate business, whose employees spend considerable periods of time away from its office, contracts with Company A to answer incoming telephone calls during periods when employees are not available to answer the telephone. Employees of Company A receive the calls to the real estate office by telephone, take messages from incoming callers, and transmit the messages to the real estate company or particular employees in that company. The service provided by Company A is not incidental to another service sold by the company that is not a taxable service. Company A’s charge for this service is subject to Wisconsin sales or use tax.
2) Company B employs an office management service that provides receptionist, typing, filing, scheduling, bookkeeping, and similar services. Employees of the office management service also answer and route incoming telephone calls. When calls cannot be routed, the office management service takes and transmits messages to the appropriate person. This answering service is only a small part of the total services provided.
The telephone answering service provided as a part of the office management service is not subject to Wisconsin sales or use tax because it is incidental to the office management service provided and that office management service is not taxable.
4. Mechanical or electronic voice messaging and telephone answering services, except ancillary services.
Example: Company A provides its customers access to an office message system computer through which a customer can deposit or retrieve telephone messages using a touch-tone telephone. The service may be used as a message center, a call forwarding service, or an answering service. Messages are stored in the computer, and the customer may send or retrieve messages, reply to a message directly, reroute messages to others, broadcast messages to a wider group, save selected messages, and cancel messages no longer needed. The service is available 24 hours a day, and the customer accesses the computer through either a toll-free telephone number or a local telephone number. The service provided by Company A is not incidental to another service sold by the company that is not a taxable service and is not associated with or incidental to providing telecommunications services. Company A’s charges for this service are subject to Wisconsin sales or use tax.
(3) Sourcing. This subsection describes the sourcing of telecommunications services, ancillary services, and telecommunications message services.
(a) Telecommunications services.
1. Except as provided in subds. 3. to 7., the sale of a telecommunications service that is sold on a call-by-call basis is sourced to the taxing jurisdiction:
7.
b. The sale of a private communication service in which all customer channel termination points are located entirely in one taxing jurisdiction for sales and use tax purposes is sourced to the taxing jurisdiction in which the customer channel termination points are located.
Example: Company A contracts with Telecommunications Provider B for private communication service to send data from Company A’s bank, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Company A’s automated teller machines or “ATMs,” located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and to send data from its ATMs in Milwaukee to its bank in Milwaukee. The charge by Telecommunications Provider B to Company A is based on a certain amount of dedicated channel capacity available to Company A on the communications channel, regardless of the volume of data transmitted or number of transmissions made by Company A. Since all of the customer channel termination points are located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the entire service is sourced to Milwaukee.
c. If the segments are charged separately, the sale of a private communication service that represents segments of a communications channel between 2 customer channel termination points that are located in different taxing jurisdictions for sales and use tax purposes is sourced in an equal percentage to both jurisdictions.
Example: Company B contracts with Telecommunications Provider C for private communication service to send data from Company B’s bank, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Company B’s automated teller machine (ATM) located in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Telecommunications Provider C charges Company B based on the location of the segments of the channel termination points. Since Company B has 2 customer channel termination points that are located in different taxing jurisdictions, one located in Milwaukee and the other located in Waukesha, the charge by Telecommunications Provider C to Company B is sourced equally between the Milwaukee taxing jurisdiction and the Waukesha taxing jurisdiction.
d. If the segments are not charged separately, the sale of a private communication service for segments of a communications channel that is located in more than one taxing jurisdiction for sales and use tax purposes is sourced to each jurisdiction in a percentage determined by dividing the number of customer channel termination points in that jurisdiction by the number of customer channel termination points in all jurisdictions where segments of the communications channel are located.
Example: Company JKL, headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has branch offices in Madison, Wisconsin, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Chicago, Illinois and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Company JKL contracts with a telecommunications company for private communication service to send messages between and among its Milwaukee office and the branch offices. Company JKL has exclusive use of the channels while using them. The telecommunications company sells use of the communications channels to other parties while Company JKL is not using them. The charges by the telecommunications company to Company JKL are based on a certain amount of dedicated channel capacity available to Company JKL on the communications channels. The telecommunications company does not bill separately for the segments of the communications channels. Increasing capacity requires a higher charge. The telecommunications company refers to this service as “private line service.” Of the charges by the telecommunications company to Company JKL for this service, 60% are subject to Wisconsin sales or use tax because 3 of the 5 customer channel termination points are located in Wisconsin.
(4) Nontaxable services. The sales price from the sale of or charge for the following services are not taxable:
(6) Purchases by persons providing service. Persons engaged in the business of providing telecommunications services are consumers, not retailers, of the tangible personal property and items, property, and goods under s. 77.52 (1) (b), (c), and (d), Stats., used by them or transferred incidentally by them in providing those services. The tax applies to the sale of the property, items, or goods to them.
Note: Section Tax 11.66 interprets ss. 77.51 (1ba), (1r), (3c), (3pe), (3pn), (3rn), (5d), (5f), (5n), (5r), (7k), (8m), (9s), (10d), (10f), (11c), (13rn), (17m), (21n), (24), (25), and (26), 77.52 (2) (a) 5. and 5m., 77.522 (4), 77.525, and 77.54 (37), Stats.
Note: The Dane County Circuit Court’s decision of May 22, 1981 in Wisconsin Department of Revenue v. North-West Services Corporation and North-West Telephone Company held that a telephone company may purchase without tax tangible personal property leased or rented to customers in conjunction with an activity open to competition with others who are not public utilities.
Note: The interpretations in s. Tax 11.66 are effective under the general sales and use tax law on or after September 1, 1969, except: (a) Chapter 39, Laws of 1975, effective July 31, 1975, expanded the telephone services subject to the tax to include “telephone services of whatever nature”; (b) Chapter 317, Laws of 1981, imposed the tax on interstate telegraph and telephone service, effective May 1, 1982; (c) “911” service became exempt on August 1, 1987, pursuant to 1987 Wis. Act 27; (d) Telecommunications services originating in Wisconsin and charged to a subscriber in Wisconsin became taxable October 1, 1989, pursuant to 1989 Wis. Act 31; (e) Telecommunications services originating in Wisconsin and charged to a service address in Wisconsin became taxable October 1, 1991, pursuant to 1991 Wis. Act 31; (f) The repeal of the exemption for equipment in central offices of telephone companies became effective September 1, 1995, pursuant to 1995 Wis. Act 27; (g) Telecommunications services paid for by the insertion of coins in a coin-operated telephone became taxable August, 1, 1996, pursuant to 1995 Wis. Act 351; (h) Certain telecommunications message services became taxable December 1, 1997, pursuant to 1997 Wis. Act 27; (i) Telecommunications services originating outside Wisconsin, terminating in Wisconsin and charged to a service address in Wisconsin, except certain services obtained by means of a toll-free number, became taxable December 1, 1997, pursuant to 1997 Wis. Act 27; (j) Credit for sales tax properly paid to another state on interstate telecommunications services became effective October 14, 1997, pursuant to 1997 Wis. Act 27; (k) Sales of rights to purchase telecommunications services became taxable August 1, 1998, pursuant to 1997 Wis. Act 237; (L) The exemption for interstate private line services no longer applies, effective December 1, 2002; (m) The definitions of air-to-ground radio telephone service, ancillary services, call-by-call basis, communications channel, conference bridging service, customer, customer channel termination point, detailed telecommunications billing services, directory assistance, eight hundred service, end user, fixed wireless service, home service provider, international telecommunications services, internet access services, interstate telecommunications services, intrastate telecommunications services, mobile telecommunications service, nine hundred service, paging service, place of primary use, postpaid calling service, prepaid calling service, prepaid wireless calling service, private communications service, radio service, radiotelegraph service, radiotelephone service, service address, telecommunications service, value-added nonvoice data service, vertical service, and voice mail service became effective October 1, 2009, pursuant to 2009 Wis. Act 2; (n) The specific imposition of tax on ancillary services and interstate, intrastate, and international telecommunications services became effective October 1, 2009, pursuant to 2009 Wis. Act 2; (o) The sourcing provisions related to telecommunications services became effective October 1, 2009, pursuant to 2009 Wis. Act 2; (p) The change of the term “gross receipts” to “sales price” and the separate impositions of tax on coins and stamps sold above face value under s. 77.52 (1) (b), Stats., certain leased property affixed to real property under s. 77.52 (1) (c), Stats., and digital goods under s. 77.52 (1) (d), Stats., became effective October 1, 2009, pursuant to 2009 Wis. Act 2; (q) The definition of “primary place of use” was amended to replace the reference to federal law with specific language, and the definition of “prepaid wireless calling service” was amended, pursuant to 2013 Wis. Act 20; and (r) The imposition of tax on internet access services under s. 77.52 (2) (a) 5. a., Stats., is repealed effective July 1, 2020, pursuant to 2017 Wis. Act 59.
History: Cr. Register, December, 1977, No. 264, eff. 1-1-78; am. (1) (a), (b), (d) and (e), (2), Register, January, 1983, No. 325, eff. 2-1-83; cr. (1) (f), Register, July, 1987, No. 379, eff. 8-1-87; emerg. r. and recr. (1) (a) and (b), eff. 10-1-89; r. and recr. Register, April, 1990, No. 412, eff. 5-1-90; renum. (3) (d) and (e) to be (4) (f) and (3) (d), Register, March, 1991, No. 423, eff. 4-1-91; r. and recr., Register, September, 1993, No. 453, eff. 10-1-93; am. (2) (intro.) and (5), Register, September, 1997, No. 501, eff. 10-1-97; CR 99-101: r. and recr. (1) (a) and (3), renum. (1) (b), (2), (4) (intro.) to (c), (f), and (5) to be (1) (d), (2) (a), (5) (intro.) to (c), (e) and (8) and am. (2) (a) (intro.), 1., 2. (intro.), (5) (intro.), (a), (c) and (e), cr. (1) (b), (c) and (e), (2) (intro.) and (b), (4), (5) (d), (6) and (7), r. (4) (d) and (e), Register November 2002 No. 563, eff. 12-1-02; EmR0924: emerg. r. and recr. eff. 10-1-09; CR 09-090: r. and recr. Register May 2010 No. 653, eff. 6-1-10; correction in (2) (d) (intro.) made under s. 13.92 (4) (b) 7., Stats., Register May 2010 No. 653; CR 10-094: am. (2) (intro.) Register November 2010 No. 659, eff. 12-1-10; CR 12-014: r. (2) (a) 9., cr. (2) (cm), am. (3) (a) 2., 3., (b), (c) Register August 2012 No. 680, eff. 9-1-12; CR 14-006: r. and recr. (1) (u), am. (1) (x) Register August 2014 No. 704, eff. 9-1-14; CR 20-018: am. (4) (b) Register July 2021 No. 787, eff. 8-1-21; CR 22-044: am. (3) (intro.), r. (3) (c), am. (3) (d) Register June 2023 No. 810, eff. 7-1-23.