Dear County Wide® Customer:

If you purchased a new system in 2008, please understand that the reason your invoice does not show sales tax is that you did not pay any sales tax.  Texas sales tax rules for a contractor with a lump-sum contract consider the contractor as the consumer.  That is, we paid the sales tax.  We didn't pay the sales tax for you, we paid it as if we bought the equipment for ourselves at cost (and therefore paid tax at cost).  Please see the following link from the comptroller's office:

• Rules on Lump-Sum Contract - seesection (i)(1)(A) & (B)
  
• Contractor as Consumer - an easier to read tax publication
  

We invoice this way to be able to offer you the best price for your system as a real-property contractor.  "But wait!", you say.  "Surely County Wide profit covers the sales tax, so just give me the sales tax overhead portion from your profit."  Indeed we do cover the sales tax costs, but we also cover many other costs, property tax among them.  You wouldn't get very far with your CAD claiming you paid County Wide a part of your property tax.  Likewise, you should not try to claim our sales tax liability as your own.

We apologize for any confusion this may cause, but we believe you save more by using a lump-sum contract than by paying more for equipment and material in order to have an itemized contract with the highest possible sales tax amount.