It doesn't (and can't, unless Congress changes the law) override the basic requirement that Massachusetts can only require you to collect sales tax if you have a Massachusetts nexus establishing jurisdiction. However if you are 1099 consulting for an MA client, in many cases that will establish an MA nexus, so this will apply to many consultants who have MA clients. On the other hand if you purely operate a website where people can purchase software or hosted services with a credit-card, and you have no MA presence, merely having customers from MA won't establish an MA nexus.
What if you are a SquareUp.com and you send hardware to your customers that enables the out-of-state hosted service? Even if the hardware was free to the customer, as I read the new law in the context of real property that establishes nexus, simply having hardware in the state establishes nexus.
Square readers are tangible personal property, not real property; and they are tangible personal property o the customer once they are sent out, not of SquareUp. So, they have zero relevance to a rule that would make real property owned by SquareUp a nexus in the state, as they are neither real property nor owned by SquareUp.
Good point, that was a poor example I chose. This tax will hit service-delivered-as-an-appliance plays out there, if I am reading it right. Unless they give away the appliance server.
'real' means land* And improvements to land, like buildings. I'm curious if you thought it was an extraneous word, or what you thought the alternative to 'real' property would be.
*except in Louisiana, where they use French terminology for everything and you have immovable/movable property rather than real/personal
