This document lists some issues that are known to the developers, but have not yet been addressed. These issues typically do not affect Vermont, but could affect other states implementing Streamlined Sales Tax with the gateway.
The State of Vermont is contained within a single time zone (US/Eastern), so the software hasn't been developed and tested with multiple timezones in mind.
If states that span multiple timezones (example: Nebraska, Tennessee, etc) wish to implement Streamlined Sales Tax with the gateway, their developers will have to test the software with systems configured with different timezones and make any necessary changes.
The potential danger of ignoring this issue is that transmissions arriving close to the deadline may be considered late when they actually arrived on time. For example, let's say the deadline is July 15th at midnight. A transmitter in western Nebraska transmits at 23:45 (Mountain Time) on July 15th (before the deadline) to a server in eastern Nebraska where the time is 00:45 (Central Time) on July 16th (after the deadline). Since the server isn't aware that it is in a state that spans multiple timezones, it will consider the transmission from western Nebraska as late.
In some cases, hosting the gateway with a commercial hosting provider is more affordable than hosting the application internally. When you are shopping for hosting companies, you should be aware of what timezone the servers will reside in.
If the server is going to be located in a timezone other than that of the implementing state, then you should request that the hosting provider change the timezone of the servers to your state's timezone. If that is not possible, then the implementing state will have to make changes to the gateway to allow it to run in one timezone and act like it is in another.
The potential danger of ignoring this issue is that transmissions arriving close to the deadline may be considered on time when they actually arrived late. For example, let's say the deadline is July 15th at midnight. Your state is in the Eastern timezone and the server is in the Central timezone. A transmitter transmits a message at 23:45 (Central Time) on July 15th. The gateway thinks that the message arrived on time, but really it was late because the time in the implementing state is 00:45 (Eastern Time) on July 16th.