No Minn. refunds for firms that paid equipment, telecom taxes set for repeal

Minnesota businesses that have been paying sales taxes on equipment repair and telecommunication purchases since last summer will not see any refunds when those taxes end April 1.

State Revenue Commissioner Myron Frans clarified that point Thursday during a news conference to update his department's implementation of the tax law changes passed last Friday.

Frans said it would have been hard to look back at nine months of business transactions.

"Remember, it's not the vendors who owe the tax. It's the people who paid for the repair," he said. "So we have to find the original person who made that purchase and track down that receipt. We recommended that we not do it retroactive because of the difficulty of implementing a refund procedure for that tax that we don't really have in place at that level."

Frans said a refund for telecommunication purchases would have largely benefited out-of-state companies. He said that wouldn't have made good policy sense. Lawmakers also repealed a tax on warehousing services that was originally set to begin on April 1.