Read our June 2017 posts on stateandlocaltax.com or read each article by clicking on the title. For the latest coverage and commentary on state and local tax developments delivered directly to your phone, download the latest version of the Eversheds Sutherland SALT Shaker app.

• SALT Pets of the Month: Chloe and Bella:
  Meet Chloe and Bella, twelve and eleven year old Shih Tzu’s belonging to Valerie Saines, Director – State Income Tax at T-Mobile. Also known as Chloe-Poo and Bella-Roo, these two girls are best friends who go everywhere and do everything together despite their very different personalities.

• California Legislature Passes Bill That Creates Two New Tax Agencies and Reduces the Board of Equalization’s Powers
  On June 15, the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 102, the Taxpayer Transparency and Fairness Act of 2017, which divests the California State Board of Equalization (BOE) of several key functions and creates two new government agencies—the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration and the Office of Tax Appeals—to perform many of the BOE’s previous duties.

• Kroger False Claims Act Lawsuit Remanded to Indiana State Court for Lack of Diversity Jurisdiction
  An Indiana federal court remanded a lawsuit brought under the Indiana False Claims and Whistleblower Protection Act (False Claims Act) back to Indiana state court.

• New York Sales Tax Price of Being a Member of the Club
  In an Advisory Opinion, the New York Department of Taxation and Finance concluded that fees paid to a social club by non-members for certain activities (tennis lessons, children’s camp, basketball court use, etc.) are not subject to tax, although membership fees that provide access to the same activities are subject to tax.

• FEATURED PUBLICATIONS
  • A Pinch of SALT: Trends and Developments in Alternative Apportionment of State Income
    In this edition of A Pinch of SALT, Eversheds Sutherland (US) attorneys Christopher Lutz, Robert Merten and Nicholas Kump report on the latest cases and regulatory efforts regarding alternative apportionment, and discuss the Multistate Tax Commission’s amended model section 18, designed to provide fairness to taxpayers.
  • Developing Strategic Solutions to Multistate Tax Litigation
    In their article for State Tax Notes, Eversheds Sutherland (US) attorneys Jeffrey Friedman and Stephanie Do along with Pilar Mata, Tax Counsel at Tax Executives Institute, discuss the complexities of challenging tax assessments in a multistate setting and the importance of developing a comprehensive strategy for multistate tax litigation.
  • Some Observations on Gross Receipts Taxes
    The majority of states impose a form of a corporate income tax. However, currently five states—Delaware, Ohio, Nevada, Texas, and Washington—impose a broad-based, statewide corporate gross receipts tax. The most recent addition to that list is Nevada, which in its 2015 Legislative Session enacted a new Commerce Tax that is imposed on gross revenue. More recently, there have been and are, at the time of writing, ongoing efforts in Oregon to enact a corporate gross receipts tax, either as a separate tax or as an alternative tax to the existing Oregon corporate income/excise tax. Even more recently, both West Virginia and Louisiana have considered a gross receipts tax. Such existing and proposed gross receipts taxes present a variety of policy and legal issues. In their article for the Journal of Multistate Taxation and Incentives, Eversheds Sutherland (US) attorneys Eric Coffill and Jessica Allen discuss a number of those issues and what appears to be a recent upsurge in interest in gross receipts taxes, with a discussion of the most recently enacted gross receipts tax (Nevada) and the most serious current effort to enact a gross receipts tax (Oregon).