§ 8.01-184.1.Declaratory judgment to adjudicate constitutional nexus.

Section 8.01-184.1 creates a narrow, purpose-built declaratory judgment action aimed at a specific modern problem: a tax official outside Virginia asserting that a Virginia-connected business owes back sales or use taxes for conduct occurring wholly or partly in the Commonwealth. Subsection A gives circuit courts original jurisdiction over such a suit when two conditions are both met — the party seeking relief is a business organized under Virginia law, a sole proprietorship owned by a Virginia domiciliary, or a business qualified to do business in Virginia; and the responding party is a government official of another state or one of its political subdivisions who claims the business was obligated to collect that state’s sales or use taxes.

Subsection B defines what the business is entitled to ask for: a declaration on whether the other state’s demand that the business collect and remit sales or use taxes, given the specific facts of the business’s operations, imposes an undue burden on interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. That is a distinct constitutional question from whether the tax is otherwise valid — it asks specifically whether Virginia-connected commerce is being unfairly burdened by an out-of-state tax-collection demand.

Subsection C makes the out-of-state official answerable in a Virginia court. It subjects any government official meeting the requirements of subdivision A 2 to the personal jurisdiction of Virginia circuit courts, to the extent the United States Constitution allows, and it states that this subsection governs personal jurisdiction for actions under this section and serves as the authorization required under Section 8.01-330, Virginia’s framework for exercising jurisdiction over out-of-state parties.