Shaking things up in state and local tax
Shaking things up in state and local tax
By Stephen Burroughs and Jonathan Feldman
Following up on our coverage of Georgia tax reform, late last night the Georgia Assembly passed a committee substitute to the House’s Transportation Funding Bill, H.B. 170. The bill represents a compromise of the House and Senate proposals, establishing a 26-cents-per-gallon excise tax on gasoline and a…
By Stephen Burroughs and Jonathan Feldman
Georgia’s Transportation Funding Bill may lead to significant tax reform for the state in 2016. In response to a nearly $1 billion transportation budget shortfall, on March 5 the Georgia House of Representatives passed H.B. 170, which would convert Georgia’s sales tax on motor fuel to a 29.2…
By: Stephen Burroughs & Timothy Gustafson
The Georgia Tax Tribunal held that for sales and use tax purposes contractors are per se consumers of tangible personal property and thus are ineligible for: (1) the sale for resale exclusion, and (2) a regulatory exclusion for property temporarily stored in Georgia while in interstate commerce. The taxpayer…
The Georgia Tax Tribunal has held that an electric utility’s transmission and distribution equipment was not “necessary and integral to the manufacture of tangible personal property” and thus did not qualify for an exemption from Georgia sales and use tax. See Georgia Power Company v. MacGinnitie, Dkt. No. Tax-S&UT-1403540 (Ga. Tax Tribunal, Jan. 5…
By Zachary Atkins & Jonathan Feldman
The Georgia Tax Tribunal held that the Texas Franchise Tax (the “TFT”) is a tax “on or measured by income” and allowed a Georgia resident, who indirectly owned an interest in a pass-through entity, to adjust his federal adjusted gross income for the amount of the entity’s income…
By Jessica Kerner and Pilar Mata
The Georgia Department of Revenue determined that a company’s cloud-based applications and related services are not subject to Georgia sales and use tax. The company maintains and operates hardware and software on servers located outside of Georgia that it uses to support its customers’ telecommunications equipment, including voice, video…
By Jessica Kerner and Timothy Gustafson
The Georgia Court of Appeals dismissed a customer class action lawsuit seeking a sales tax refund from a utility company, holding that the applicable statutory provisions for claiming a refund of sales taxes did not authorize the customers to bring a direct refund cause of action against the seller.
Georgia has seen a flurry of activity recently around the issue of whether a non-profit must actually put its property to exempt/charitable use to qualify for the “purely public charity” property tax exemption, or whether the property must merely be dedicated to exempt use. The issue frequently arises when a non-profit owns property that is…
On March 22, 2012, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed House Bill 384 (2012) into law, expanding the types of companies that are required to collect and remit Utah sales and use tax. HB 384 requires sellers that hold “substantial ownership interests” in certain “related sellers” to collect and remit Utah sales and use tax. Today, the Utah State Tax Commission released guidance on how to determine whether a business entity’s activities trigger the state’s new affiliate nexus law. The new nexus regulations go into effect on July 1, 2012.
The new affiliate nexus law, Utah Code Ann. § 59-12-107(2)(b), treats a seller as if it is selling tangible personal property, a service, or a product transferred electronically for use in Utah and will be required to collect and remit sales and use taxes if:Continue Reading Utah Quietly Expands Affiliate Nexus Statute
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed three bills that will enact a wide range of changes to Georgia’s tax structure and procedure (HB 386, HB 100, and HB 846). These changes include a new sales tax exemption for energy used in manufacturing, an affiliate nexus provision, creation of a new Georgia Tax Tribunal, publication of letter rulings, and changes to the taxation of motor vehicles, among others. The bills are the culmination of the comprehensive tax reform effort started in 2010 by the Tax Reform Council. While the bills fall short of the dramatic changes originally proposed by the Council (which included taxation of services and groceries, and communications tax reform), they nevertheless include a number of taxpayer-friendly changes.Continue Reading Georgia Tax Reform 2.0: Three Bills Signed by Governor
