Cloud computing technologies increasingly have become the answer for companies that want to minimize information technology costs and gain more customers. The substantial revenues generated by cloud computing transactions also have caught the attention of states that are struggling to close massive budget deficits. The result is that state tax auditors are aggressively pursuing additional revenues by asserting new interpretations or applications of laws that often pre-date the advent of cloud computing.

"Without a standard methodology in place for determining the tax treatment of cloud computing transactions across the various states, both the vendors and buyers of SaaS must navigate a daunting patchwork of conflicting state laws and administrative pronouncements," says BNA State Tax Assistant Managing Editor Steven Roll.  A new Cloud Computing webinar from BNA will help state tax practitioners evaluate opportunities, gauge state tax compliance obligations, and better equip businesses to anticipate the potential areas of conflict over these transactions.

Cloud Computing: State Tax Opportunities and Pitfalls in the Forecast for Hottest Tech Trend takes place December 1, 2011, from 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., (ET).

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Citizens Against Government Waste last week published its second report on cloud computing, "Cloud Computing 201." The publication aims to provide agencies at all levels of government with a coherent approach to information technology (IT) procurement, which should both increase efficiency and save taxpayers money without compromising security or performance. "Government agencies at all levels should procure IT while following rigorous policies and principles for all solutions, including the cloud, and always consider security, reliability, and total cost of ownership. Greater efficiency and cost savings can be achieved with the cloud, but the risks of transitioning to any new tool and method must be addressed proactively. Procurement officials should keep in mind that the cloud is one of many potential solutions, none of which should be mandated; and that the cloud is simply a computing tool, rather than the basis for an overall IT strategy," said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  The report's recommendations to improve management of IT budgets include full consideration of the agency's mission; an assessment of current IT inventory; interagency collaborations; strategic technology and contract development; data protection and portability; security and privacy; backup solutions; and effective program management and user training.  Using these guidelines and other resources cited in "Cloud Computing 201," agency chief information officers will be able to adopt a commonsense approach to plan and develop an IT strategy that offers the opportunity to include cloud computing tools.  (Contact: Citizens Against Government Waste,             202/467-5318      , http://www.cagw.org.

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The Treasury Department has taking the chore of processing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the cloud, according to a post on CIO.gov.  FOIA, which allows citizens to access public records, has been revamped.  The more efficient solution – dubbed goFOIA – hosts online submissions of FOIA requests, enables Treasury employees to use a new cloud-based tracking solution to manage FOIA requests and citizens’ information.  It also gives employees a collaborative document management system to better handle the documents involved in responding to FOIA requests. (Contact: www.onlinefoia.treasury

If the U.S. Postal Service wants to keep on delivering, maybe it should take to the cloud.  The USPS office of Inspector General  said the postal service should offer email, secure document storage, and other online services as a way for the financially strapped agency to leverage the Web as a service platform, according to a story in Information Week

The IG’s report outlined a digital platform the agency could create to offer services such as eMailbox and eLockbox to help the USPS take advantage of the Internet economy and recoup some of the more than $5 billion it lost in 2011.  As described in the report, eMailbox would be a "closed-loop" Web-based email service that would allow people only to communicate with others using the service, and access their email from various Web-enabled devices, including smartphones. eLockbox would be a secure document storage service that would be a subfolder of the email service and let people archive legal and business documents. (Contact: UBM TechWeb,             415/947-6000       http://www.ubmtechweb.com/about/).

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