The District of Columbia has taken the lead from Maryland and will require sales tax be paid on alarm monitoring effective October 1st 2011. This change will effect security and fire alarm monitoring for commercial and residential properties located in DC.

The notice from DC goes on to specify that DC sales tax will now apply to “...the service of monitoring an electronically controlled burglar or fire alarm system for any residential or commercial property located in the District...”.

Our invoices for security alarm monitoring and commercial fire alarm monitoring (including auto-credit card charges) will reflect this change as of 1 October 2011.

Commercial Fire Alarm monitoring is a critical life safety service Urban Alarm provides for many Washington DC properties. Traditionally this service is provided via two independent phone lines. However, as telecom providers move away from switched circuits to IP based phone lines new monitoring methods become neccessary.

Urban Alarm’s SNAP Radio service is one of the only best alternatives to phone lines for commercial fire alarm monitoring. Because of the “mesh” architecture of the network, which allows multiple pathways for alarm signals to be communicated to the central station, the SNAP Radio network is NFPA approved as a sole method of commercial fire alarm monitoring (i.e., no additional backup is needed).

Not only does this provide an excellent alternative for fire alarm monitoring but it is extremely cost effective typically saving over $500 per year archiving a return on investment in just over a year.