Shaking things up in state and local tax
Shaking things up in state and local tax
The Texas Supreme Court held that receipts from licensing data to customers were properly characterized as the sale of an intangible asset and were sourced to the customer’s legal domicile under Texas’s location of the payor sourcing rule. TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Co. v. Combs, 2011 WL 2112763 (May 27, 2011).
TGS collects and stores seismic…
After nearly 60 years of experimentation with value added and gross receipts taxes, Michigan has now joined the rank-and-file corporate income tax states through its repeal of the Michigan Business Tax (MBT). Governor Snyder signed the tax package (H.B. 4361, H.B. 4362) into law on May 25, 2011. According to the Council on State Taxation, the legislation takes the state from 30th to 16th in the nation in terms of lowest state and local business tax burden.
The new 6% corporate income tax, effective January 1, 2012, retains many of the same features as the Business Income Tax component of the former MBT, including unitary combined reporting, single sales factor apportionment with market sourcing, a Finnigan apportionment rule, and the same tax rate. The MBT factor presence nexus standard is also retained, under which nexus is established if an out-of-state company has physical presence in Michigan for more than one day or actively solicits sales in the state and has Michigan gross receipts of $350,000 or more. The new tax also incorporates the same tax regimes for insurance companies and financial institutions that existed under the MBT. Insurance companies continue to be subject to the greater of a 1.25% tax on gross direct Michigan premiums or the retaliatory tax, and financial institutions will still be subject to tax based on 0.29% of net capital.Continue Reading Michigan’s Tax Roulette Lands on a Corporate Income Tax
On April 26, the Multistate Tax Commission (MTC) Income & Franchise Tax Uniformity Subcommittee (Subcommittee) held the first of three scheduled meetings to revise corporate income tax apportionment. Specifically, the MTC is seeking to limit the definition of “sales” under Article IV.1(g) of the Uniform Division of Income for Tax Purposes Act (UDITPA) for purposes…
The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts (Comptroller) took a “members only” approach to determine how revenue derived from website access fees should be sourced to Texas for Texas Franchise Tax apportionment purposes. In Letter No. 201102989L (Feb. 2, 2011), the Comptroller considered the sourcing of revenues derived from a company’s social networking website. The social networking website allowed registered users to pay a flat fee to access the website’s database, publish information, communicate with other users, and utilize and interact with the website’s programs. The Comptroller concluded that such fees were akin to membership fees because customers were charged a flat rate for certain benefits and thus should be sourced to the location of the payor.Continue Reading Texas “Tweets” Guidance on Sourcing Social Networking Website Revenue
The Multistate Tax Commission (MTC) is proposing to significantly change how the sales factor is calculated for apportioning corporate income. Currently, most states define “sales” includable in the sales factor as “all gross receipts of the taxpayer” (except those receipts related to nonbusiness income). MTC members are considering a proposal to limit the definition of “sales” to…
The Multistate Tax Commission (MTC) is in the midst of two projects that focus on the financial services industry. The first project is an effort to amend the recommended formula for the apportionment and allocation of the net income of financial institutions, first adopted by the MTC in 1994. The second project, referred to as the “non-income taxpayer project,” involves the MTC’s drafting of a model statute that would subject certain partnerships and other pass-through entities to an entity level state income tax to the extent their income passes through to an entity that is not itself subject to the state’s income tax.Continue Reading The Multistate Tax Commission Restructures Apportionment of Financials, Seeks to Tax Pass-Throughs
Ever the trendsetter, California is hip to transparency and has posted proposed budget trailer bill language on the Department of Finance Web site, www.dof.ca.gov. The language confirms what taxpayers already knew: A target is on their backs as budget negotiations begin. The tax provisions specific to business taxpayers include a repeal of California’s Enterprise Zone Program and all related credit carryovers; mandatory single sales factor apportionment; mandatory market sourcing; tax shelter amnesty; and a financial institutions records match (FIRM) program. Other language includes a legislative constitutional amendment to extend current tax rates for five years. All of these proposals require a two-thirds legislative vote. However, the tax shelter amnesty and FIRM provisions could be enacted with a mere majority vote.Continue Reading California Mischief: Budget Tax Proposals Repeal Credits, Limit Apportionment Methods
The Utah State Tax Commission has amended its rules for apportioning financial institution receipts attributable to services from a costs-of-performance sourcing rule to a market-based sourcing rule (Utah Admin. R. R865-6F-32(3)(l)). Effective December 9, 2010, financial institutions must include in the sales factor numerator receipts from services not otherwise specifically addressed in the regulation “if the purchaser of the services receives a greater benefit of the services in Utah than in any other state.”
The change in sourcing methodology is consistent with Utah’s recently amended general corporation apportionment statute, Utah Code Ann. § 59-7-319, which similarly provides for the market sourcing of services (based on where the purchaser receives a greater benefit of the service). The change to market sourcing for financial institutions is another departure by Utah from the Multistate Tax Commission’s (MTC) model regulations for the apportionment of financial institution income. Continue Reading Utah Goes Market for Sourcing of Financial Institution Services
The Multistate Tax Commission (MTC) held its Fall Uniformity Committee Meetings in Atlanta, Georgia on December 7-9. With a significant turnover in state tax commissioners expected as a result of the November elections, it will be interesting to see if any of the decisions made by MTC representatives the last few years are revisited at…
Despite the overwhelming business opposition to “throwout” sales factor apportionment rules and New Jersey’s recent repeal of its “throwout” rule, Maine is now bucking the trend and adopting a new “throwout” rule. Effective for 2010 and subsequent years, Maine adopted the Finnigan methodology for computing the sales factor for a combined return and to replace its “throwback” rule with the “throwout” rule.
Under the new Finnigan methodology of Code Me. R. 810 for determining the numerator of the sales factor in a combined report, “total sales of the taxpayer” in Maine now includes sales of the taxpayer and sales of any other entity included in a combined return, regardless of whether those entities themselves have nexus with Maine. The adoption of Finnigan applies to both unitary groups that have elected to file a single combined return and those that file separate returns utilizing combined apportionment. If separate returns are filed, each taxpayer’s return will include in the numerator of the sales factor its own Maine sourced sales as well as a portion of the Maine sourced sales of those entities in the unitary group that do not have nexus with Maine.Continue Reading Throw Out the Throwback: Maine Replaces “Throwback” with “Throwout” and Adopts Finnigan
