Texas Comptroller Don Huffines has signed an executive order directing his office to eliminate state sales tax on EHRs, patient portals and other healthcare technology used to maintain, access or share medical records.
The order tells agency staff to file a proposed amendment to Rule 3.342, which governs taxable information services, with the Texas secretary of state for publication in the Texas Register. The amendment would classify charges for those systems as neither taxable information services nor taxable data processing services. The order argues that EHR data is proprietary to the client it’s gathered for and that a comptroller cannot create new taxes through rulemaking or interpretation.
The change is not yet final. Publication will open a public comment period of at least 30 days, during which Texans, healthcare providers and other interested parties can weigh in, and the proposal must go through the state’s formal rulemaking process.
Mr. Huffines said he acted after physicians at a roundtable last month told him they were being charged sales tax to access their own patients’ electronic records. The order says that cost gets passed through the healthcare system and raises the cost of care.
“No Texan should have to pay a tax to see their own medical records,” Mr. Huffines said in an Oct. 6 news release.
The order also directs the agency’s associate deputy comptroller for tax to review Rule 3.330 and related guidance so that medical records technology is treated consistently across the agency’s rules. The comptroller’s office said it may propose further changes to how it interprets the information services and data processing taxes. The Legislature imposed the data processing tax in 1987.
The order is part of Mr. Huffines’ Taxpayer First Project, which moved the previous week to end a data processing tax on marketplace fees.
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