Calling all trivia fans! Don’t miss out on a chance to show off your SALT knowledge!

We will award prizes for the smartest (and fastest) participants.

This week’s question: Which ruling recently found that online learning plans were not taxable digital goods?

E-mail your response to SALTonline@eversheds-sutherland.com.

The prize for the first response to today’s question is a $25 UBER Eats gift card. Answers will be posted on Saturdays in our SALT Shaker Weekly Digest. Be sure to check back then!

The Wisconsin Department of Revenue recently published updated guidance that states that marketplace providers are responsible for the collection and remittance of the Wisconsin premier resort taxes. For purposes of collection and remittance responsibilities, a marketplace provider in Wisconsin is a person who facilitates a retail sale on a seller’s behalf by listing or advertising the seller’s products and services, and who processes the payment. Wisconsin has eight premier resort areas, and every sale subject to the state sales tax is also subject the premier resort area tax if the sale takes place in one of those eight areas and the seller is classified under one of the listed Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes.

In this week’s episode of the SALT Shaker Podcast policy series, our typical format is switched up! Eversheds Sutherland Associate Jeremy Gove tries his hand in the policy space and interviews Partner Nikki Dobay about the latest updates from the MTC.

The MTC just held its spring meetings in Albuquerque, New Mexico in April, including the Uniformity Committee meeting on April 20. (You can read some highlights from the meeting in our full legal alert.)

Jeremy and Nikki cover the ongoing developments with the MTC’s recently updated statement on PL 86-272, how the statement is being received, and taxpayers’ concerns with the MTC’s proposed interpretation of that federal law. They also highlight Nikki’s efforts at working with the Committee to establish a universal power of attorney form, and wrap up by touching on the Committee’s current uniformity projects on state taxation of partnerships and taxation of digital goods.

Their discussion concludes with a surprise, nontax question – if you were any type of body of water, what would you be, and why?

The Eversheds Sutherland SALT team has been engaged in state tax policy work for years, tracking tax legislation, helping clients gauge the impact of various proposals, drafting talking points and rewriting legislation. Partner Nikki Dobay, who has an extensive background in tax policy, hosts this series, which is focused on state and local tax policy issues.

Questions or comments? Email SALTonline@eversheds-sutherland.com. You can also subscribe to receive our regular updates hosted on the SALT Shaker blog.

 

 

Listen now: 

Subscribe for more:

   

On April 29, 2022, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance issued two sets of “final draft” regulations relating to the corporation franchise tax reform that took effect for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2015. Since the sweeping corporate tax reform was enacted, the Department has published a series of proposed updates to the Article 9-A corporation franchise tax regulations, but the two sets of regulations issued on April 29 are the first to be identified as “final drafts.” One set relates to regulation Parts 1 – 3 (definitions, nexus, losses, etc.), and the other set relates to regulation Parts 5 – 10 (tax credits, reports, assessments, etc.). The Department has indicated that a third set of “final draft” regulations, regarding Part 4 (apportionment), will be published in “summer 2022.”

According to the Department’s website, the Department “intends to begin the State Administrative Procedure Act (SAPA) process to formally propose and adopt these regulations” this fall, and requests comments on the two sets of draft regulations by June 30, 2022.  

The Department’s website continues to include a “reminder” that “these draft regulations are not yet final and should not be relied upon.”

The draft regulations can be found on the Department’s website here.

The Minnesota Tax Court ruled that a separately stated surcharge covering credit card processing fees was subject to sales tax. The taxpayer, a sole proprietor, operates vacation rental properties that are held out for booking either directly through the taxpayer or through third-party marketers. The taxpayer charges a 4% separately stated surcharge for reservations booked directly with him as a reimbursement of his credit card fees. The taxpayer had not collected sales tax on the surcharge. The Tax Court concluded that the credit card surcharge is included within the broad statutory definition of “sales price,” and thus is subject to sales tax. The Tax Court reasoned that the surcharge is an expense of the seller that cannot be deducted from the sales price and that the fee did not qualify for the exception for “carrying charges from credit extended on the sale of personal property or services.”

Calling all trivia fans! Don’t miss out on a chance to show off your SALT knowledge!

We will award prizes for the smartest (and fastest) participants.

This week’s question: Who was our April 2022 SALT Pet of the Month?

E-mail your response to SALTonline@eversheds-sutherland.com.

The prize for the first response to today’s question is a $25 UBER Eats gift card. Answers will be posted on Saturdays in our SALT Shaker Weekly Digest. Be sure to check back then!

It is still early in the 2022 session of the California Legislature, which reconvened on January 3, and goes on final recess on August 31. However, a number of proposals to increase taxes are already under consideration.

In his article for Financial Advisor Magazine, Eversheds Sutherland Senior Counsel Eric Coffill details current tax increase proposals to watch.

Read the full article here.

This week, Eversheds Sutherland attorneys Maria Todorova, Eric Tresh and Liz Cha will participate in panel sessions during TeleStrategies’ 2022 Communications Taxation Conference in New Orleans, LA. The conference addresses the challenging and complex domain of telecommunications taxation, regulatory compliance and fees.
On May 5, Eric and Liz will provide an update on key litigation and controversies involving the taxation of newer technologies and the proliferation of cross-over products that integrate with telecommunications services, as well as the taxation of traditional voice, applications and data services. The session will also review legislative initiatives impacting the telecommunications industry. On May 6, Maria will cover the policy considerations for and against gross receipts taxes (such as pyramiding) and current issues and controversies associated with the proper application of those taxes.
View and learn more about past and upcoming events and presentations for the SALT team.

“Business-friendly” Texas has been the leading poacher of California-based companies for over a decade, with relocations from tech-dominated California only accelerating during the pandemic. Oddly enough, at a time when Texas’s highest-profile new neighbors are known for cutting-edge research, the state seeks to narrow the scope of its research and development credit applicable to some internal-use software.

Last fall the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts adopted amended rules concerning the state’s R&D credit applicable to franchise and sales taxes. These amendments provide detailed guidance regarding how the comptroller seeks to administer the credit in the future.

However, the way in which Texas conforms to the Internal Revenue Code has led the comptroller to misapply the federal regulations to Texas’s R&D credit. This misapplication may create unpleasant surprises for Texas taxpayers, particularly those relocating operations to the Lone Star State.

In this installment of A Pinch of SALT for Tax Notes State, Eversheds Sutherland attorneys Jeff Friedman, Mary Monahan, Dennis Jansen and Mary Kate Nicholson look at Texas’s recently amended rules and their impact.

Read the full article here.