Shaking things up in state and local tax
Shaking things up in state and local tax
By David Pope and Pilar Mata
The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts determined that a taxpayer was not permitted to elect the Multistate Tax Compact’s (Compact) three-factor apportionment formula. This treatment is consistent with prior Texas Comptroller decisions holding that Texas law requires a single-factor apportionment methodology (see Sutherland SALT’s previous articles on this topic…
By Saabir Kapoor and Prentiss Willson
Virginia’s Tax Commissioner denied a taxpayer’s request for alternative apportionment because the taxpayer did not demonstrate by clear and cogent evidence that the statutory apportionment methodology led to an unconstitutional and inequitable result. The taxpayer, a limited partnership headquartered outside Virginia, sold real estate located in its home state…
On June 6, 2013, the Michigan Court of Claims became the second court in the country to hold that the Multistate Tax Compact (the Compact) is a binding multistate compact that cannot be repealed by a separate, subsequent statute. The taxpayer was thus entitled to apportion its income under the former Business Income Tax component…
By Zachary Atkins and Prentiss Willson
A Texas administrative law judge ruled that a taxpayer was not entitled to make an alternative three-factor apportionment election under Article IV of the Multistate Tax Compact (Compact) for Texas franchise tax purposes. The Texas Tax Code requires taxpayers to use a single gross receipts factor to apportion taxable…
By Scott Booth and Timothy Gustafson
The Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board ruled that an out-of-state corporation’s subsidiary qualified as a financial institution by virtue of the lending activities undertaken by the trusts in which it held beneficial ownership and from which the subsidiary derived more than 50% of its gross income. Under Massachusetts’ statutory “catchall”…
The Multistate Tax Commission’s Financial Institutions Working Group held its monthly meeting on April 23, 2013 to discuss a proposed apportionment formula for financial institutions. For additional details about the meeting, read our legal alert, “Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner: MTC’s Financial Institution Apportionment Effort.”
By Madison Barnett and Jack Trachtenberg
The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in two consolidated cases that the state’s estimated corporate income tax assessments were invalid because the taxpayers’ sales factors were improperly calculated using an alternative population-based formula rather than the statutory costs of performance (COP) formula. The two taxpayers were out-of-state book publishers…
By Zachary Atkins and Andrew Appleby
The Oregon Supreme Court held that a taxpayer’s sale of an FCC license as part of a liquidation generated apportionable business income. The taxpayer, Crystal Communications, Inc., sold all of its assets to AT&T, including an FCC license. The gain on the FCC license was treated by the taxpayer…
By Mary Alexander and Prentiss Willson
The disallowance of a credit for income taxes paid to other states against Maryland’s county income tax was ruled unconstitutional as a violation of the dormant Commerce Clause by the Court of Appeals of Maryland. Maryland’s income tax, which includes both state and county components, is imposed on all…
On March 5, 2013, the Multistate Tax Commission’s Income and Franchise Tax Uniformity Subcommittee declined to move forward with a transfer pricing project and instructed its Financial Institutions Working Group to examine the inclusion of loans in the property apportionment factor. For full details, read our legal alert, “Update from the MTC’s Winter Committee…
