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The North Carolina legislature has introduced S.B. 622, which would make significant changes to a wide range of North Carolina taxes.

Among those changes, the legislation would allow a deduction, to the extent included in federal taxable income, for amounts received from specified economic incentive programs in North Carolina—the Job Maintenance and Capital Development…

The North Carolina Supreme Court recently held that the presence in the state of a trust’s beneficiary is not sufficient to establish income tax nexus for the trust. In the Kimberly Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust case, the trust’s beneficiaries were residents of North Carolina. There were no other connections between the state and the…

By Liz Cha and Open Weaver Banks

The North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the North Carolina Business Court’s decision that Fidelity Bank was precluded from deducting “market discount income” from US bonds for North Carolina corporate income tax purposes. Fidelity Bank acquired US government bonds at a discount, held these bonds until maturity, and earned…

By Ted Friedman and Madison Barnett

The North Carolina Court of Appeals held that it would violate Due Process to impose income tax on an out-of-state inter vivos trust because the trust lacked a sufficient connection with North Carolina. The trust was created and governed by laws outside of North Carolina, the Trustee resided outside…

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…

This morning, the North Carolina Court of Appeals released its decision in Delhaize America, Inc. v. Lay, No. COA11-868 (N.C. Ct. App. 2012). Delhaize, formerly known as Food Lion, formed an intangible holding company as part of a restructuring in the late 1990s. The Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Revenue sought to combine Delhaize with its intangible holding company on the ground that combination was necessary to reflect Delhaize’s “true earnings,” which is a North Carolina statutory standard used to justify the application of forced combination. The Department assessed Delhaize approximately $20.6 million in tax, interest, and penalty, which Delhaize challenged primarily on procedural due process grounds.

The definition and application of “true earnings” has been a controversial issue. In Wal-Mart Stores East, Inc. v. Hinton, 676 S.E.2d 634 (N.C. Ct. App. 2009), the North Carolina Court of Appeals held that the Secretary of Revenue has discretionary authority to apply forced combination, and the court will not disturb the Secretary’s findings absent an abuse of discretion. Moreover, the Wal-Mart court defined “true earnings” to include income up to the limit found in the U.S. Constitution.

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Continue Reading Delhaized and Confused: North Carolina Court of Appeals Finds Forced Combination, Penalty

The Indiana Tax Court granted a motion for partial summary judgment to AE Outfitters Retail Co. and held that the Indiana Department of State Revenue may require combined reporting only after first determining that other alternative apportionment methodologies would result in an equitable apportionment of the taxpayer’s income. AE Outfitters Retail Co. v. Ind. Dep’t of State Revenue (Ind. Tax Ct. Oct. 25, 2011).

The dispute in the case was whether the Department was required to first apply statutorily provided remedies to adjust a taxpayer’s income before applying combined reporting. Like many states, Indiana statutes provide alternative apportionment methods for re-determining income if the taxpayer’s income is not fairly represented, including separate accounting, the exclusion of factors, the inclusion of additional factors, or any other method to effectuate an equitable allocation and apportionment of the taxpayer’s income. Ind. Code § 6-3-2-2(l). Furthermore, in the case of commonly owned or controlled businesses, the statute allows the Department to “distribute, apportion or allocate the income derived from sources within the state of Indiana between and among those organizations, trades or businesses in order to fairly reflect and report the income derived from sources within the state of Indiana by various taxpayers.” Ind. Code § 6-3-2-2(m). The statute, however, limits the Department’s ability to use combined reporting in situations where it “is unable to fairly reflect the taxpayer’s adjusted gross income for the taxable year through use of other powers granted to the department by” those other statutory provisions.

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Continue Reading Indiana Combination Is Last Resort