Shaking things up in state and local tax
Shaking things up in state and local tax
On February 7, 2024, the South Dakota Supreme Court held that South Dakota’s use tax, as applied to the taxpayer, did not violate the Commerce or Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, despite some of the taxed equipment being used in South Dakota for only one day.
The taxpayer, a Minnesota-based company that specializes…
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the City of Philadelphia is not required to provide a city wage tax credit for income tax payments that a resident made to another state. For the purposes of a dormant Commerce Clause analysis, the court found that state and local taxes do not need to be considered in…
The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed a lower court decision that had denied an Illinois’ coal producer’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The coal producer sought to stop the enforcement of a Kentucky law that directed the agency that regulates Kentucky utilities – the Kentucky Public Utility Commission (PUC) – to…
The principle of nondiscrimination plays a pivotal role in the field of state and local taxation. Discriminatory taxes are said to deter cross-border activity, distort competitive neutrality, and hinder economic efficiency by placing a thumb on the scale of the competitive marketplace. Recognizing these issues, federal and state governments have prohibited discrimination since the founding…
On December 4, 2020, the Washington Department of Revenue Appeals Division determined that an out-of-state company’s participation in an annual three-day trade show in Washington state was sufficient to create substantial nexus with the state and subject the company to both business and occupation tax (B&O tax) and retail sales tax. The taxpayer, an out-of-state…
On October 23, 2020, the Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board ruled that capital gain from a Florida S corporation’s sale of a subsidiary Massachusetts LLC was subject to Massachusetts corporate excise tax and nonresident composite tax. The taxpayer contended that the U.S. Constitution’s Due Process and Commerce Clauses forbade Massachusetts from taxing the income because the…
On June 5th, the Maryland Court of Appeals held that a reduced interest rate on refunds paid to taxpayers as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Comptroller of Maryland v. Wynne did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s dormant Commerce Clause.
In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a Maryland statute that…
The Washington Court of Appeals held that Seattle’s method of apportioning the City’s business and occupation tax (B&O tax) was unconstitutionally applied and unfairly apportioned when the City excluded compensation paid to independent representatives from the apportionment payroll factor. The taxpayer, a financial services firm headquartered in Seattle, generated most of its income through the…
On March 2, 2020, the Oregon Tax Court held that the application of the state’s E911 Tax to a provider of interconnected VoIP services (“Taxpayer”) did not violate the Due Process and Commerce Clauses of the U.S. Constitution. The E911 Tax is imposed on each person with access to Oregon’s emergency communications system, whether through…
The Utah Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Utah’s taxing scheme, which provides a credit against taxes paid to other states, but not against taxes paid to foreign governments.
The taxpayers – Utah residents who owned interests in a Subchapter S corporation doing business throughout the world – argued that this scheme taxed a disproportionate…
