Shaking things up in state and local tax
Shaking things up in state and local tax
By Hanish Patel and Marc Simonetti
In a Chief Counsel Ruling, the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) ruled that, for purposes of determining its sale factor, a financial information provider should source the sales of its information services based on where the taxpayer’s customer receives the benefit of the service, and not where the ultimate…
By Olga Goldberg and Marc Simonetti
The California Superior Court struck down a regulation that imposed a de facto ban on contingent fee arrangements between businesses and consultants applying for the California Competes tax credit. The Court ruled that the regulation improperly exceeded the scope of the related statute. Ryan U.S. Tax Services, LLC v.
By Samantha Trencs and Amy Nogid
The California Board of Equalization (BOE) voted to adopt an amendment to Ca. Code Regs. tit. 18, § 1525.4, to resolve a statutory ambiguity by clarifying that a taxpayer will qualify for the partial sales and use tax exemption available for certain manufacturing and research and development equipment purchases…
On December 31, 2015, the California Supreme Court closed the book on California’s Multistate Tax Compact election saga, unanimously holding that the Compact is not a binding contract among its members and the State was not bound by its provisions before the State’s repeal of the Compact in 2012.
Citing the Multistate Tax Commission’s amicus…
By Evan Hamme and Timothy Gustafson
The California State Board of Equalization (Board) unanimously rejected Craigslist, Inc.’s (Craigslist) argument that California’s adoption of a factor-presence nexus regime in 2009 reflected pre-existing federal constitutional nexus standards pursuant to which Craigslist would be “subject to tax” in jurisdictions where it did not have a physical presence, and…
In a significant rebuff of the California State Board of Equalization (BOE), the California Second District Court of Appeal held that a manufacturer’s sale of software on tangible media was exempt from sales tax under the technology transfer agreement (TTA) statutes. Lucent Technologies, Inc. v. State Bd. of Equalization, No. B257808, 2015 WL 5862533.
By Evan Hamme and Tim Gustafson
In a rare Chief Counsel Ruling (the first of 2015), the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) held that the sale of an entire line of business qualified as an “occasional sale” for corporate franchise tax purposes, thus requiring the selling taxpayer to exclude the resulting gross receipts from its…
By Michael Penza and Andrew Appleby
The California Court of Appeal held that California’s disparate treatment of intrastate and interstate unitary businesses discriminated against interstate commerce. California requires taxpayers engaged in a unitary business within and without California to calculate their taxable income using combined reporting, but provides taxpayers engaged in a unitary business wholly…
By Robert P. Merten III and Timothy A. Gustafson
The California State Board of Equalization (BOE) has issued a rare ruling on residency topics, finding in favor of individual taxpayers on two issues. First, the BOE found that the taxpayers established domicile in Washington three months earlier than the Franchise Tax Board claimed, because they…
By Michael Penza and Timothy Gustafson
The California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) issued an information letter explaining that a trust is taxable in California if any of the following three conditions are met: (1) the trust has income from California sources; (2) a trustee is a resident of California; or (3) a non-contingent beneficiary is…
