Noteworthy Cases

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The Michigan Court of Appeals recently held that the state’s statutory apportionment formula was unconstitutionally distortive as applied to a taxpayer’s Michigan Business Tax (MBT) liability. Therefore, the taxpayer was entitled to use an alternative formula. The court noted that this is an exceptional case where the taxpayer met its burden to show that the…

The New Jersey Tax Court ruled that an individual owner of a single-member limited liability company (“SMLLC”) correctly reported his distributive share of partnership income reported by the SMLCC. The SMLLC owned a 50% interest in a partnership that reported losses. On his New Jersey gross income tax return, the individual owner of the SMLCC…

On January 9, 2020, the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division, upheld a New Jersey Tax Court decision that income, or “receipts,” earned by a taxpayer from providing broadcast fax, email and voice messaging services were performed within New Jersey and thus the majority of such receipts were properly sourced to New Jersey for purposes…

The Washington Court of Appeals held that a laboratory created by the University of Utah was not a government entity exempt from Washington taxation.

Affirming the lower court’s decision, the Washington Court of Appeals rejected Arup Laboratories, Inc.’s arguments that it should be excluded from paying B&O taxes because it is an “arm of the…

Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court held that receipts from subscriptions to remote access software were subject to sales tax as taxable transfers of prewritten software.  Following a change in the law to tax sales of prewritten software regardless of medium of delivery, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue promulgated a regulation stating that such taxable sales include…

After nearly a decade of stalled litigation in Illinois state court, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit permitted a group of taxpayers to proceed in federal court with their US constitutional challenge to property tax assessments, over Tax Injunction Act and comity objections by Cook County. While the district court held that…

The quarterly Eversheds Sutherland SALT Scoreboard tallies significant state and local tax litigation wins and losses. Twice each year, Eversheds Sutherland releases a videocast analyzing recent results.

In this Bottom Line videocast, Charles Capouet and Samantha Trencs discuss:

  • the overall results for 2019, including a breakdown of corporate income tax and sales and use tax

…

On February 6, 2020, the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals held that a captive automobile financing company was not subject to commercial activity tax (CAT) on receipts that it earned in connection with three types of revenue streams:

  1. receipts from sales of retired leased vehicles,
  2. receipts from securitization transactions, and
  3. interest subvention payments.

Background:…

On January 16, 2020, the Supreme Court of Washington, in an en banc decision, held that a retailer was entitled to take bad debt deductions for sales and Business and Occupation (“B&O”) taxes when its customers defaulted on purchases made using private label credit cards.

The retailer contracted with banks to offer private label credit…