When Old Laws Meet New Tech: Florida’s Uncertain Future in State Taxation” — Published in the Nov/Dec 2025 Issue of The Florida Bar Journal

“When Old Laws Meet New Tech: Florida’s Uncertain Future in State Taxation,” by Jeanette Moffa, has been published in the Florida Bar Journal. The publication addresses a timely question for Florida’s legal and business community: how statutes drafted for a tangible-goods economy should be applied to digital-first business models that scale across jurisdictions and operate largely in the cloud.

The article first situates the discussion in Florida’s current legal landscape. Florida’s sales and use tax provisions—and related corporate income tax concepts—were designed in an era when value moved through physical inventory and on-premises services. Today, value is delivered through software subscriptions, cloud platforms, AI-assisted services, remote professional work, and data-driven functionality. These models blur traditional categories and force careful analysis of character, taxability, and sourcing under statutes that did not contemplate virtual environments.

A core theme is classification. Is access to a cloud platform best understood as a service, a license, or a hybrid? What happens when a single subscription bundles storage, processing, updates, and support? Which elements are determinative when mapping a modern offering to statutory terms? Moffa explains why these questions matter: classification influences taxability for sales and use tax and informs sourcing logic for income tax, affecting audit positions, compliance strategies, and litigation posture.

Sourcing presents a parallel challenge. Historic rules presumed services were performed and consumed in identifiable places. In a distributed model, code may execute across multiple regions, users are dispersed, and the locus of value can shift dynamically. Whether a rule emphasizes where work is performed or where benefit is received, applying that rule to cloud-based delivery requires text-driven interpretation rather than ad hoc outcomes.

Throughout, the publication stresses interpretation over expansion. The analysis does not advocate broader tax bases or new revenue instruments. Instead, it underscores fidelity to statutory language, administrability, and predictable results that businesses, auditors, and courts can apply consistently. Predictability helps taxpayers plan in good faith, supports uniform enforcement, and reduces controversy.

The article also highlights practical steps. Documentation is pivotal: contracts that clearly describe what a customer receives; technical outlines of system architecture and deployment; records reflecting user locations and usage patterns; and billing details that distinguish access to capabilities from the transfer of code. When facts are documented, they can be matched more reliably to statutory categories and sourcing rules.

While the focus is Florida, the themes are national. States vary in their treatment of digital goods and services; some rely on explicit statutes or rules, while others proceed through guidance or adjudication. Florida’s growing technology economy makes these interpretive questions especially consequential in-state. Divergent treatments across states amplify compliance burdens for multistate taxpayers—another reason predictable, text-rooted analysis is essential.

Looking ahead, innovation will continue to test traditional categories—through AI-enabled services, edge computing, embedded platforms, and new distribution models. Statutes inevitably trail technology. Moffa’s piece encourages stakeholders to engage with these issues now, aiming for clarity that keeps Florida’s tax system fair, predictable, and aligned with the Legislature’s enacted framework as commerce evolves.

Read the Florida Bar Journal

© 2025 Jeanette Moffa. All rights reserved.