Quote:
GE [xyz] sells optional maintenance contracts as a bundled item which includes support as well as any enhancements or upgrades. According to the state of XX If these fees are not separately stated, the entire charge for the maintenance contract is subject to tax. I understand the customer’s statement that the support portion would not be considered taxable in the state of XX if the maintenance was broken out and separately stated. However that is not the way our maintenance contract was sold to the customer. The taxation is valid and the customer is responsible to pay.
So GE chose to write the maintenance contract not to benefit itself (it just passed the tax on), but to the State. GE could have written the contract to save customer thousands in annual sales tax... but chose not to. It wrote the contract to maximize revenue to State [METRO?].