{"id":508,"date":"2013-01-24T19:35:27","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T19:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/?p=508"},"modified":"2025-08-11T19:13:42","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T19:13:42","slug":"sales-tax-on-legal-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Sales Tax on Legal Services?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"id_5101888b3bfb14c88258590\">\n<p>Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton just announced that he wants to levy a sales tax on legal services.\u00a0 I think I heard the proposed rate is 5.5%.\u00a0 Funny, I always thought that the filing fees that we already have to pay were a sort of tax.\u00a0 Not long ago , under the previous governor, all the filing fees in Minnesota were increased dramatically because of state budget problems.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder if besides the attorney fee he also wants to tax the filing fees.\u00a0 Since all I do is bankruptcy work, which is always filed in federal court, the filing fees I collect from my clients are all for the federal court.\u00a0 Query:\u00a0 Is it constitutional for a state to put a sales tax on a federal fee?<\/p>\n<p>If you are from a state where attorney fees are already subject to a sales tax, I would be interested to hear the details of how it is done in your state and what the clients think about it.\u00a0 My clients are already about as broke as they can get.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To tell you the truth, this feels very uncaring to me.\u00a0 I understand that one state legislator is already talking about how this tax is going to help people.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a link to an <a title=\"Plan to Tax Services a &quot;Killer&quot;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.startribune.com\/politics\/statelocal\/188146881.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">article in today&#8217;s Star Tribune <\/a>on the subject.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton just announced that he wants to levy a sales tax on legal services.\u00a0 I think I heard the proposed rate is 5.5%.\u00a0 Funny, I always thought that the filing fees that we already have to pay were a sort of tax.\u00a0 Not long ago , under the previous governor, all the &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Sales Tax on Legal Services?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sales Tax on Legal Services? - Better Call Dave - Bankrupt MN Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sales Tax on Legal Services? - Better Call Dave - Bankrupt MN Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton just announced that he wants to levy a sales tax on legal services.\u00a0 I think I heard the proposed rate is 5.5%.\u00a0 Funny, I always thought that the filing fees that we already have to pay were a sort of tax.\u00a0 Not long ago , under the previous governor, all the &hellip; Continue reading &quot;Sales Tax on Legal Services?&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Better Call Dave - Bankrupt MN Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/davidkelllylawoffice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-24T19:35:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-11T19:13:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"DaveKelly\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"DaveKelly\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"DaveKelly\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a385963a920f92e1cf406fa921c98453\"},\"headline\":\"Sales Tax on Legal Services?\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-01-24T19:35:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-11T19:13:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/\"},\"wordCount\":221,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/\",\"name\":\"Sales Tax on Legal Services? 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Sometimes that seems like a long time, and other days I feel as if I just started. These days my practice is devoted entirely to counseling folks concerning their financial problems and representing them in Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy. One thing I don't do is credit repair. When asked about matters concerning credit scores, I like to say \\\"I'm a very good source of unreliable information about that.\\\" What I mean is that I hear a lot about it from my clients who often report back to me how they are doing after their bankruptcy is completed, sometimes even years later; but having heard some stories from a few people doesn't qualify me to give any advice. I spend a lot of time with my clients. I want to be sure we get it right. There are civil and criminal penalties for concealing or providing incorrect information in a bankruptcy care, and my goal is to keep myself and my clients as far away from problems like that as possible. You can find me in MInnetonka near I-394 and Hopkins crossroad. It's ten or fifteen minutes from downtown Minneapolis. You can see parts of Plymouth, Minnesota, Golden Valley, Minnesota and St. Louis Park, Minnesota from the high ground in front of my building. If you take a look at the map, you can see that most of St. Louis Park is closer to my office than many parts of Minnetonka.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.mn-bankruptcy.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/author\/davekelly\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sales Tax on Legal Services? - Better Call Dave - Bankrupt MN Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Sales Tax on Legal Services? - Better Call Dave - Bankrupt MN Blog","og_description":"Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton just announced that he wants to levy a sales tax on legal services.\u00a0 I think I heard the proposed rate is 5.5%.\u00a0 Funny, I always thought that the filing fees that we already have to pay were a sort of tax.\u00a0 Not long ago , under the previous governor, all the &hellip; Continue reading \"Sales Tax on Legal Services?\"","og_url":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/","og_site_name":"Better Call Dave - Bankrupt MN Blog","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/davidkelllylawoffice","article_published_time":"2013-01-24T19:35:27+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-08-11T19:13:42+00:00","author":"DaveKelly","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"DaveKelly","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/"},"author":{"name":"DaveKelly","@id":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a385963a920f92e1cf406fa921c98453"},"headline":"Sales Tax on Legal Services?","datePublished":"2013-01-24T19:35:27+00:00","dateModified":"2025-08-11T19:13:42+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/"},"wordCount":221,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/#organization"},"inLanguage":"en","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/","url":"https:\/\/mn-bankruptcy.com\/blog\/sales-tax-on-legal-services\/","name":"Sales Tax on Legal Services? 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Sometimes that seems like a long time, and other days I feel as if I just started. These days my practice is devoted entirely to counseling folks concerning their financial problems and representing them in Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy. One thing I don't do is credit repair. When asked about matters concerning credit scores, I like to say \"I'm a very good source of unreliable information about that.\" What I mean is that I hear a lot about it from my clients who often report back to me how they are doing after their bankruptcy is completed, sometimes even years later; but having heard some stories from a few people doesn't qualify me to give any advice. I spend a lot of time with my clients. I want to be sure we get it right. There are civil and criminal penalties for concealing or providing incorrect information in a bankruptcy care, and my goal is to keep myself and my clients as far away from problems like that as possible. 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