Hawaii Revised Statutes
237. General Excise Tax Law
237-29.8 Call centers; exemption; engaging in business; definitions.

§237-29.8 Call centers; exemption; engaging in business; definitions. (a) This chapter shall not apply to amounts received from a person operating a call center by a person engaged in business as a telecommunications common carrier for interstate or foreign telecommunications services, including toll-free telecommunications, telecommunications capabilities for electronic mail, voice, and data telecommunications, computerized telephone support, facsimile, wide area telecommunications services, or computer-to-computer communication.
(b) The establishment of a call center in this State by any person shall not be used by itself by the State to find that any other part of the person's business is engaged in business in this State for the purposes of this chapter. Gross income or gross proceeds received by a call center for customer service and support shall be exempt from the measure of taxes imposed by this chapter.
(c) The department, by rule, may provide that the person providing the telecommunications service may take from the person operating a call center a certificate, in a form that the department shall prescribe, certifying that the amounts received for telecommunications services are for operating a call center. If the certificate is required by rule of the department, the absence of the certificate in itself shall give rise to the presumption that the amounts received from the sale of telecommunications services are not for operating a call center.
(d) As used in this section:
"Call center" means a physical or electronic operation that focuses on providing customer service and support for computer hardware and software companies, manufacturing companies, software service organizations, and telecommunications support services, within an organization in which a managed group of individuals spend most of their time engaging in business by telephone, usually working in a computer-automated environment; provided that the operation shall not include telemarketing or sales.
"Customer service and support" means product support, technical assistance, sales support, phone or computer-based configuration assistance, software upgrade help lines, and traditional help desk services.
"Telecommunications common carrier" means any person that owns, operates, manages, or controls any facility used to furnish telecommunications services for profit to the public, or to classes of users as to be effectively available to the public, engaged in the provision of services, such as voice, data, image, graphics, and video services, that make use of all or part of their transmission facilities, switches, broadcast equipment, signalling, or control devices.
"Telecommunications service" or "telecommunications" means the offering of transmission between or among points specified by a user, of information of the user's choosing, including voice, data, image, graphics, and video without change in the form or content of the information, as sent and received, by means of electromagnetic transmission, or other similarly capable means of transmission, with or without benefit of any closed transmission medium.
(e) This section shall not apply to gross proceeds or gross income received after June 30, 2010. [L 2000, c 195, §2]

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