La. R.S. 47:342 — General definitions

For the purposes of this Chapter, unless the context clearly otherwise requires or unless otherwise defined in specific portions of the Chapter, the following words shall have the respective meanings ascribed to each in this Section.
(1) Business. "Business" includes any business, trade, profession, occupation, vocation, or calling.
(2) Collector. For the purpose of this Chapter, the "collector" is the tax collector, finance officer, treasurer, city clerk, or any other officer whose duty is to receive and collect the taxes and money due to each municipality or parish.
(3)(a) Contractor. "Contractor" is synonymous with the term "Builder" and means a person, firm, partnership, corporation, association, or other organization, or a combination of them, which undertakes to or offers to undertake to, or purports to have the capacity to undertake to, or submits a bid to, or does himself or by or through others, construct, alter, repair, add to, subtract from, improve, move, wreck, or demolish any building, highway, road, railroad, excavation, or other structure, project, development or improvement, or to do any part thereof, including the erection of scaffolding or other structure or works in connection therewith and includes subcontractors and specialty contractors. As such, the word, "contractor" shall include oil field service contractors, including those contractors performing general oil well servicing, maintenance, and construction when conducted as a single company unit. "General oil well servicing" shall include welding, pipe coating, pipe inspection, wireline service, automation, workover, logging, analysis, seismograph, installing and servicing equipment, packing, platform work, perforating, and completion.
(b) Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, in any parish with a population of between three hundred and fifty thousand and four hundred and thirty-five thousand, according to the latest federal decennial census, "contractor" shall be synonymous with the term "builder" and means a person, firm, partnership, corporation, association, or other organization, or a combination of them, which undertakes to or offers to undertake to, or purports to have the capacity to undertake to, or submits a bid to, or does himself or by or through others, construct, alter, repair, add to, subtract from, improve, move, wreck, or demolish any building, highway, road, railroad, excavation, or other structure or movable, project, development or improvement, or to do any part thereof, including the erection of scaffolding or other structure or works in connection therewith and includes subcontractors and specialty contractors. As such, the word "contractor" shall include oil field-related fabrication and oil field service contractors, including those contractors performing maintenance, construction, and fabrication of tangible property, movable or immovable, and general oil well servicing, maintenance, and construction when conducted as a single company unit. "General oil well servicing" and "fabrication" shall include welding, pipe coating, pipe inspection, wireline service, automation, workover, logging, analysis, seismograph, installing and servicing equipment, packing, platform work, perforating, and completion.
(4) Contractor's gross receipts. For the purposes of computing the license fee provided for in R.S. 47:355 of this Chapter, a "contractor's gross receipts" are determined the same for all contractors, whether or not they have a lump sum contract or a cost plus contract. The gross receipts for a lump sum contract are based on the actual amount of the contract, whereas, the gross receipts for a cost plus contract are based on the actual cost of the contract to the owner including the amount added thereto as a fee.
(5) Fixed location. For the purpose of this Chapter, a "fixed location" means any permanent structure which is used to provide goods or services to consumers.
(6) Gross commissions for travel agencies. For carrying on each business of travel agency, the license tax shall be based on gross commissions. "Gross commissions" for travel agencies is defined as fees earned on the sales of tickets and provision of other services and shall not include actual ticket prices.
(7) Gross income for real estate broker. For carrying on each business of real estate broker, the license tax shall be based on gross income. "Gross income for real estate brokers" is defined as those fees from any source deposited into the real estate broker's agency's general fund account less escrow deposits, and less fees paid to cooperating real estate brokers. Notwithstanding any provisions herein to the contrary, the maximum amount paid by a real estate broker shall be two thousand, two hundred dollars.
(8) Peddler. For the purpose of this Chapter, a "peddler" means any person who for himself or any other person, goes from house to house, or place to place, or store to store, exposing and selling the merchandise which he carries with him and delivering the same at the time of or immediately after the sale or without returning to the base of business operation between the taking of the order and the delivery of the goods; however, any person who uses the same vehicle or a combination of one or more vehicles for the purpose of taking orders and delivering merchandise, regardless of the fact that the vehicle returns to the base of operations between the taking of the order and the delivery of the merchandise, shall be deemed a peddler, unless such person can show that the merchandise delivered is accompanied by an invoice or delivery ticket prepared at the base of operations and which conforms to the original order and that the person delivering the merchandise has permitted no deviation from the original order by allowing the purchaser to reject, cancel, increase, or decrease the quantity at the time of delivery or to offset against such quantity any merchandise delivered at a prior time which is being returned. This extension of the meaning of the term "peddler" shall not be interpreted so as to prevent rejection or cancellation of bona fide orders or the return of inferior merchandise, but shall be construed so as to prevent persons peddling merchandise from escaping their tax liability by subterfuge through means of so-called "standing order" or blanket advance orders, increase and decrease in quantities at the time of delivery, arbitrary rejections and cancellations, and offset of merchandise returned by reason of nonsale rather than obligation of warranty, all of which are hereby declared to be mere devices to prevent normal methods of operations so as to disguise the business of a peddler as an ordinary wholesale business. Peddler shall include but is not limited to hawkers, itinerant vendors, and any retail dealers not having a fixed place of business.
(9) Person. "Person" includes an individual, firm, corporation, partnership, association, or other legal entity.
(10) Retail dealers to institutional consumers. For the purpose of this Chapter, a "retail dealer to institutional consumers" includes all businesses selling, at retail from a fixed place of business, merchandise to dairymen, cattlemen, or farmers, to federal, state, parish, or municipal governments or institutions, to educational or charitable institutions, to hospitals, manufacturers, public utility companies, processors, refiners, fabricators, contractors, severers of natural resources, carriers of freight or passengers, pipe lines, hotels, and restaurants provided that such sales constitute the major portion of the business.
(11) Separate location. As used in R.S. 47:346 of this Chapter, a "separate location" exists unless a similar or associated type of business is operated as a unit under a single roof or on the same contiguous tract of land.
(12) Wholesale dealer. For the purpose of this Chapter, except as specifically provided in this Chapter, a "wholesale dealer" means any person who sells to other dealers who in turn resell.
Amended by Acts 1981, No. 567, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1982; Acts 1986, No. 1017, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1987; Acts 1988, No. 752, §1, eff. Jan. 1, 1989; Acts 2010, No. 667, §1; Acts 2011, 1
st
Ex. Sess., No. 42, §2, eff. July 1, 2011; Acts 2011, No. 326, §§1, 2.
NOTE: See Acts 1986, No. 1017, §3, and Acts 1986, 1st Ex. Sess., No. 18, §1, and Acts 1988, No. 752, §3, all governing applicable tax years for different provisions amended in those years.
NOTE: See Acts 2010, No. 667, §2, relative to effectiveness.