Shaking things up in state and local tax
Shaking things up in state and local tax
By Zachary Atkins and Andrew Appleby
An Arizona Department of Revenue hearing officer determined that the gross receipts from a taxpayer’s deemed asset sale pursuant to I.R.C. § 338(h)(10), including gross receipts attributable to goodwill, could not be included in the taxpayer’s sales factor for corporate income tax apportionment purposes. The taxpayer asserted that goodwill…
By Shane Lord
The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania held that gross receipts received by Verizon in connection with nonrecurring service charges—including telephone line installation, moves of or changes to telephone lines and service, and repairs of telephone lines—were not taxable under the Commonwealth’s gross receipts tax on telephone companies. The court distinguished these nonrecurring services…
By Zachary Atkins and Prentiss Willson
A Texas administrative law judge ruled that a taxpayer was not entitled to make an alternative three-factor apportionment election under Article IV of the Multistate Tax Compact (Compact) for Texas franchise tax purposes. The Texas Tax Code requires taxpayers to use a single gross receipts factor to apportion taxable…
By Christopher Chang and Timothy Gustafson
A prepaid telephone card and long-distance service provider’s attempt to source phone card sales receipts outside of Texas was rebuffed by the Texas Comptroller because the taxpayer failed to carry its burden of proof. After initially sourcing 100% of its gross receipts to Texas and unsuccessfully claiming a cost-of-goods-sold…
Florida recently issued an unusual ruling that:
The rule seems to be that all hedging receipts are excluded, unless the hedging activities are connected to making a profit, like the output hedges, in which case the net receipts are included. This is definitely an odd result.Continue Reading Show Me the Money: Florida Issues TAA on Inclusion of Hedging Receipts in Sales Factor
The New Mexico Court of Appeals held that for purposes of imposing the state’s gross receipts tax, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Inc.’s (Booksellers) in-state activities may be imputed to an out-of-state retailer (Taxpayer) based on the use of common Barnes & Noble trademarks. New Mexico Tax. & Revenue Dep’t v. Barnesandnoble.com LLC, No. 31, 231 (N.M. Ct. App. Apr. 18, 2012). Notably, Booksellers undertook no physical activities on behalf of the Taxpayer that would independently satisfy the physical presence standard established in Quill. However, according to the court, the goodwill generated by Booksellers’ use of the same Barnes & Noble trademarks helped the Taxpayer establish and maintain a market in the state, thereby creating substantial nexus that is the “functional equivalent” of physical presence under Quill.Continue Reading “Functional Equivalent” Nexus: When Goodwill Goes Bad in New Mexico
Fees masquerading as taxes have become increasingly common. And, as illustrated by the Iowa Supreme Court’s recent decision in Kragnes v. City of Des Moines, Docket No. 09-1473 (Mar. 2, 2012), in some cases all or part of a fee may constitute an illegal exaction to the extent it is deemed to be a tax. In Kragnes, the Iowa Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s holding that municipal franchise fees imposed on gas and electric services for almost 10 years exceeded the city’s reasonable costs of regulating the gas and electric franchises and, thus, the difference between the tax collected by the city and the city’s reasonable costs constituted an illegal tax.Continue Reading City of Des Moines and Residents in ROW over Franchise Fees
The Virginia Supreme Court recently issued an interesting decision related to the minimum tax on telecommunications companies. The court held that the State Corporation Commission (“SCC”) did not have authority to exclude the taxpayer’s Internet-related revenues from the gross receipts it certifies to the Department of Taxation (“Department”). Level 3 Comm’ns, LLC v. State Corp. Comm’n, 710 S.E.2d 474 (Va. June 9, 2011).
Level 3, a telecommunications company, provides wholesale Internet services to Internet service providers. It maintains an extensive network in Virginia and is thus subject to Virginia’s minimum tax on telecommunications companies (telecommunications companies are subject to either a corporate income tax or a minimum tax on gross receipts). The minimum tax computation is a two-step process:
Continue Reading Virginia Supreme Court Includes Internet-Related Revenue in Tax Base (Sort of)
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
As we reach the midway point in the multistate legislative calendar, we thought it appropriate to highlight the present and remaining schedules of state lawmakers. The following states are currently in session: Alabama, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Significant state tax measures are alive and well in nearly all of these states. For example, California is considering several use tax nexus bills, several corporate income tax bills, and property tax “change-of-ownership” legislation. Nevada will consider recently introduced gross receipts tax legislation, loosely modeled after the Texas margins tax. The District of Columbia continues to advance a combined reporting proposal. The Texas legislature sent Governor Perry a sales tax affiliate nexus bill on May 13. Last but not least, year-long sessions in some of the more populous states like Illinois, Michigan, New York, and New Jersey will keep things interesting for months to come.Continue Reading Down to the Wire! State Legislative Schedules and Update
