Kroll Ontrack, LLC v. Commissioner of Revenue, A18-1805
b'Minnesota provides an exemption from the state\\u2019s sales tax for \\u201cmachinery and equipment used primarily to electronically transmit results retrieved by a customer of an online computerized data retrieval system.\\u201d Minn. Stat. \\xa7 297A.68, subd. 5(a) (2018). Relator Kroll On-Track purchased equipment and machinery for its system, which provides \\u201ce-discovery, information management, and data recovery products\\u201d that allow law firms, businesses, and government agencies to \\u201cassemble, maintain, sort, and search an electronic database of litigation documents.\\u201d Kroll then filed a refund claim with the Department of Revenue for the sales tax paid on the purchases. The Commissioner of Revenue denied the refund claim. Kroll appealed to the Minnesota Tax Court, which granted the Commissioner\\u2019s motion for summary judgment and denied Kroll\\u2019s summary judgment motion, concluding that Kroll\\u2019s equipment purchases do not qualify for the statutory exemption. \\n\\nOn appeal to the supreme court, the issue presented is whether Kroll Ontrack\\u2019s e-discovery system makes cumulated information equally available and accessible to all customers of the system and thus is an \\u201conline data retrieval system\\u201d eligible for the capital-equipment exemption from sales tax. (Minnesota Tax Court)'