Avercite reads the Code, the regulations, and the Rulings of the Tax Commissioner, follows the cross-references a keyword search misses, and shows its work — then declines to answer when the authority isn’t there.
The answer and the authorities behind it, side by side. Inline citations link to the authority rail, ordered by Virginia’s authority hierarchy — statute, then regulation, then the Rulings of the Tax Commissioner.
Question
Is cloud-based software (SaaS) subject to Virginia retail sales & use tax?
Generally no. Virginia’s retail sales and use tax is imposed on sales of tangible personal property[1], and access to software hosted by the provider is treated as a nontaxable service rather than a sale of tangible property[2].
The Tax Commissioner has applied that distinction to cloud-delivered software, declining to impose the tax where no tangible medium changes hands[3] — but a bundled sale that includes tangible property can change the result, so the facts of the transaction control.
When the controlling authority isn’t in the corpus — a federal question, another state, or an issue Virginia hasn’t squarely addressed — Avercite says so and declines to answer rather than guess. It is a research aid that supports a tax professional’s review; it is not legal advice and is not authoritative on its own.
Avercite is built as a typed authority graph spanning the six layers a Virginia tax answer can rest on. It is live in limited testing, and coverage of these layers is still being loaded — so Avercite tells you, per question, when an answer would fall outside what it can currently cite, and declines rather than guess.
Virginia's tax statutes, the controlling authority every answer is anchored to.
The Department's administrative code, applying the statute to facts.
The Department's published guidance on emerging and unsettled questions.
Public Documents — the Commissioner's applied determinations on real fact patterns.
Virginia decisions construing the tax code, where the courts have spoken.
Official opinions interpreting Virginia tax law.
Across income, sales & use, BPOL, and property tax — with federal and multi-state coverage on the roadmap.