Shaking things up in state and local tax
Shaking things up in state and local tax
Traditionally, mandatory worldwide combined reporting was the state corporate tax issue of most concern to companies engaged in international business. States are now moving toward a water’s-edge unitary combination method for both US and foreign-based companies.
In his article for the Spring 2017 edition of Partnering Perspectives, Eversheds Sutherland (US) Senior Counsel Eric Coffill covers…
By Evan Hamme and Marc Simonetti
The Texas Comptroller upheld a taxpayer’s separate Franchise Tax return filing position, rejecting an Administrative Law Judge’s finding that the taxpayer and its affiliate shared a strong centralized management structure that required a unitary combined report. Although the companies were commonly owned and shared an administrator, the Comptroller found…
By Mike Kerman and Madison Barnett
The Indiana Tax Court granted summary judgment to Rent-A-Center East, Inc. (RAC), finding that the Department of Revenue’s determination that RAC and two affiliates should have filed a combined return was improper. This case was on remand from a prior Indiana Supreme Court ruling (please see our prior coverage…
In a somewhat troubling decision, an Illinois Appellate Court held that a taxpayer’s parent company and its subsidiaries engaged in two lines of business—consumer packaging manufacturing and filtration product manufacturing—were unitary and had to file a combined Illinois return. Clarcor, Inc. v. Hamer, 2012 WL 1719518 (Ill. App. 1st May 11, 2012). The taxpayer contended that there was a lack of unity between the entities because: (1) the subsidiary groups lacked horizontal integration as required by the Seventh Circuit’s holding in In re Envirodyne Industries, Inc., 354 F.3d 646 (2004), and (2) even if horizontal integration is not required, there was insufficient vertical integration between the parent and the subsidiary groups to support a unitary finding.Continue Reading A Pupu Platter of a Case: Packaging and Filtration Businesses Held Unitary
The Oregon Tax Court issued its second decision in less than a month regarding combined returns that include an insurance company, this time finding for the taxpayer. Last month, in Costco Wholesale Corp. v. Oregon Dept. of Rev., TC 4956, (Ore. Tax Ct. July 16, 2012), the court held that the income of Costco’s…
The Virginia Department of Revenue (i) applied its narrow interpretation of the State’s related member add-back provision to disallow a taxpayer’s factoring company discount losses, and (ii) prohibited the taxpayer and its affiliated factoring company from filing a combined return because the factoring company did not have nexus with the State. Va. Public Document No. 11-162 (Sept. 26, 2011).
The taxpayer sold, or “factored,” its account receivables to a bankruptcy remote affiliate at a discounted price and claimed deductions for its losses on the discounted sales. The taxpayer did not add back its factoring discount losses paid to a related party because the add-back statute provides a “subject to tax” exception from the add-back requirement if the related party was subject to tax in any other state. In this case, the factoring company was subject to tax in one state. Notwithstanding the literal language of the exception, the Department interprets the subject to tax exception narrowly to allow an exception only for the amount actually apportioned to and taxed by other states and, on audit, reduced the taxpayer’s losses accordingly. The Commissioner upheld the auditor’s narrow interpretation of the subject to tax exception, limiting it to post-apportionment amounts, consistent with prior rulings (See Va. Pub. Doc. Nos. 09-49, 09-115).Continue Reading Who Lost the Remote?: Virginia Disallowed Losses and Combined Reporting
Most separate reporting states give the department of revenue discretionary authority to require affiliated companies to file a combined return under certain conditions. This authority can be a valuable when applied fairly and appropriately but can cause significant problems when abused. In this A Pinch of SALT, Sutherland SALT attorneys Jonathan Feldman and Madison Barnett…
