[§237-29.8]  Call centers; exemption;engaging in business; definitions.  (a)  This chapter shall not apply toamounts received from a person operating a call center by a person engaged inbusiness as a telecommunications common carrier for interstate or foreigntelecommunications services, including toll-free telecommunications,telecommunications capabilities for electronic mail, voice, and datatelecommunications, computerized telephone support, facsimile, wide areatelecommunications services, or computer-to-computer communication.

(b)  The establishment of a call center in thisState by any person shall not be used by itself by the State to find that anyother part of the person's business is engaged in business in this State forthe purposes of this chapter.  Gross income or gross proceeds received by acall center for customer service and support shall be exempt from the measureof taxes imposed by this chapter.

(c)  The department, by rule, may provide thatthe person providing the telecommunications service may take from the personoperating a call center a certificate, in a form that the department shallprescribe, certifying that the amounts received for telecommunications servicesare for operating a call center.  If the certificate is required by rule of thedepartment, the absence of the certificate in itself shall give rise to thepresumption that the amounts received from the sale of telecommunicationsservices are not for operating a call center.

(d)  As used in this section:

"Call center" means a physical orelectronic operation that focuses on providing customer service and support forcomputer hardware and software companies, manufacturing companies, softwareservice organizations, and telecommunications support services, within an organizationin which a managed group of individuals spend most of their time engaging inbusiness by telephone, usually working in a computer-automated environment;provided that the operation shall not include telemarketing or sales.

"Customer service and support" meansproduct support, technical assistance, sales support, phone or computer-basedconfiguration assistance, software upgrade help lines, and traditional helpdesk services.

"Telecommunications common carrier"means any person that owns, operates, manages, or controls any facility used tofurnish telecommunications services for profit to the public, or to classes ofusers as to be effectively available to the public, engaged in the provision ofservices, such as voice, data, image, graphics, and video services, that makeuse of all or part of their transmission facilities, switches, broadcastequipment, signalling, or control devices.

"Telecommunications service" or"telecommunications" means the offering of transmission between oramong points specified by a user, of information of the user's choosing,including voice, data, image, graphics, and video without change in the form orcontent of the information, as sent and received, by means of electromagnetictransmission, or other similarly capable means of transmission, with or withoutbenefit of any closed transmission medium.

(e)  This section shall not apply to grossproceeds or gross income received after June 30, 2010. [L 2000, c 195, §2]