General Information and Instructions Regarding the
Reporting Requirements for Contractors Awarded an Exemption Certificate
A contractor’s exemption certificate for a Government entity project is needed in order to purchase materials tax exempt
for the qualified project. once the exemption certificate has been applied for and awarded, there is a monthly filing
requir
ement to report the purchases that have been made for each exempt project. the Consumer’s use (Cnu) tax account
is used to report the tax-exempt purchases made with each certificate for each exempt project for each month.
the consumer’s use tax return must be filed for each of the months covered by the exemption certificate. (for example, if
the certificate’s effective date is June 29, 2014 and the expected completion date is october 1, 2014, a consumer’s use tax
r
eturn must be filed for each of the following months: June, July, August, September, and october.) A return muSt be filed
each month to report the monthly purchases. therefore, all active exemption certificates must be included on the monthly
r
eport even if the monthly purchases for a specific project was $0.
if a Cnu tax account is not already open under the taxpayer/business name, one will automatically be assigned at the time
the exemption certificate is generated. electronic filing is required through the Department’s online filing system, my
Alabama taxes (mAt). A letter containing the online filing information will be mailed to the address on file within a few
days after the new Cnu tax account has been assigned. this letter will contain all the information needed to create your
online filing account in m
At. for questions relating to setting up the account on www.myalabamataxes.alabama.gov,
please contact business registration at 334-242-1584 or the Sales tax Division at 1-866-576-6531.
once the mAt account is set up, please log in and file the monthly Cnu tax return. there is a table located at the bottom
left hand corner labeled “Contractor’s exemption for Government Constr
uction projects.” All three fields in the table are
required to be completed: exemption number, project number, and total amount of purchases for that specific project for
the month.
***please do not use lines 1 thro
ugh 9 of the return for reporting exempt project information. leave these lines blank unless
taxable purchases were made outside of the state of Alabama that need to be r
eported and tax remitted. (lines 1 through
9 do not have anything to do with the exemption reporting requirements).
When the certificate expires (upon the project’s completion) and the Cnu tax account is no longer needed, please contact
the business registration unit at 334-242-1584 and close the Cnu tax account. please be advised that if there are multiple
government entity projects open, the consumer’s use tax account should re
main open until the last project completion
date. for example, if project exC00AbCD ends in June of 2014 but project exC00efGH ends January of 2015, the Cnu tax
account must remain open until the end of January 2015. A return for project exC00efGH must be filed all the way
through January 2015.
if the applicant already has a Cnu tax account and it is currently set up online, please use this account to report exempt
pr
oject purchases through www.myalabamataxes.alabama.gov using the instructions provided above. the return may
then be filed as usual.
***All Consumer’s use tax returns are due on the 20th of the month following the month in which purchases were made
(i.e., the r
eturn for the month of June is due July 20th, etc. there are 20 days to file the return before it is deemed late.)
***Any penalty waiver requests may be directed to the Sales and use tax Division at 1-866-576-6531. only one waiver per
18 month period is allowed.
