The White House and Republican congressional leadership released an outline this week to guide forthcoming legislation on federal tax reform. The states conform to the federal tax laws to varying degrees and the extent to which they will adopt any federal changes is uncertain. This memorandum outlines some of the key areas—individual taxation, general business taxation and international taxation— with which the states will be concerned as details continue to unfold.
The White House and Republican congressional leadership released an outline this week to guide forthcoming legislation on tax reform. This outline will serve as a useful framework in structuring what will be an active, and likely contentious, phase of reform activity.
Yesterday, the South Dakota Supreme Court released its much-anticipated opinion in the Wayfair litigation, affirming a March 2017 trial court decision granting the remote retailer’s motion for summary judgment on the basis that the economic nexus law enacted in 2016 (SB 106) is unconstitutional and directly violates the US Supreme Court’s dormant Commerce Clause precedent in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota.
The South Dakota litigation remains at the front of the pack of a host of state court cases challenging similar state economic nexus laws across the United States. The expedited review (and decision) by the South Dakota Supreme Court here is significant, and puts the litigation well within the range of cases that would be decided by the end of the October 2017 Term (i.e., by July 2018), assuming cert is granted—which is by no means a guarantee. The state has 90 days to file a cert petition with the US Supreme Court, which can be extended upon request. Stay tuned, as this litigation is far from over and the sitting US Supreme Court will be tasked with deciding whether they will honor Justice Kennedy’s request to bring a case before the Court in DMA v. Brohl.
The full South Dakota Supreme Court opinion is available here.
On August 31, 2017, in a 4-3 split decision, the Virginia Supreme Court (Court) affirmed a circuit court’s ruling that in order for income to qualify for the “subject-to-tax” exception to its addback statute, the income must actually be taxed by another state. Kohl’s Dep’t Stores, Inc. v. Va. Dep’t of Taxation, no. 160681 (Va. Aug. 31, 2017). A copy of the Opinion (Op) is available here. The Court, however, did find for the taxpayer on its alternative argument, concluding that the determination of where income was “actually taxed” includes combined return and addback states, in addition to separate return states, and includes income subject to tax in the hands of the payor, not just the recipient. For our prior coverage of the subject-to-tax exception, see here.
The issue here was whether Kohl’s Department Stores, Inc. (Kohl’s), which operates retail stores throughout the United States (including Virginia), was required to “add back” to its income royalties it paid to a related party for the use of intellectual property owned by that party. Kohl’s deducted the royalty payments as ordinary and necessary business expenses in the computation of its federal income, and the recipient related party included the royalty income in its taxable income calculations in the states in which it filed returns, including both separate and combined reporting states. The Court considered whether the royalty payments paid by Kohl’s must be “added backed” to Kohl’s taxable income under Virginia law, or whether the royalties fell within Virginia’s “subject-to-tax” exception. (more…)
Yesterday, the application period opened for the limited-time MTC Marketplace Seller Voluntary Disclosure Initiative opened and it will close October 17, 2017. Since our last blog post on the topic detailing the initiatives terms, benefits and application procedure, six additional states (listed below) have signed on to participate in varying capacities. The lookback period being offered by each of the six states that joined this week is described below.
Practice Note
The MTC marketplace seller initiative is now up to 24 participating states. It is targeting online marketplace sellers that use a marketplace provider (such as the Amazon FBA program or similar platform or program providing fulfillment services) to facilitate retail sales into the state. In order to qualify, marketplace sellers must not have any nexus-creating contacts in the state, other than: (1) inventory stored in a third-party warehouse or fulfillment center located in the state or (2) other nexus-creating activities performed by the marketplace provider on behalf of the online marketplace seller.
While Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee have signed on to the attractive baseline terms (no lookback for sales/use and income/franchise tax), Minnesota and Massachusetts are requiring their standard lookback periods (i.e., 3+ years). Thus, these two states (similar to Wisconsin) are not likely to attract many marketplace sellers. The District of Columbia’s noncommittal case-by-case offer leaves a lot to be determined, and their ultimate offer at the end of the process could range from no lookback to the standard three years.
The Multistate Tax Commission (MTC) is moving quickly to implement a multistate amnesty program through its current National Nexus Program (NNP) for sellers making sales through marketplaces. The new MTC marketplace seller amnesty program is limited to remote sellers (3P sellers) that have nexus with a state solely as the result of: (1) having inventory located in a fulfillment center or warehouse in that state operated by a marketplace provider; or (2) other nexus-creating activities of a marketplace provider in the state. Other qualifications include: (1) no prior contact/registration with the state; (2) timely application during the period of August 17, 2017 through October 17, 2017; and (3) registration with the state to begin collecting sales and use tax by no later than December 1, 2017, and income/franchise tax (to the extent applicable) starting with the 2017 tax year.
The baseline guarantee is prospective-only (beginning no later than Dec. 1, 2017) tax liability for sales and use and income/franchise tax, including waiver of penalties and interest. The program also attempts to ensure confidentiality of the 3P seller’s participation by prohibiting the states and MTC from honoring blanket requests from other jurisdictions for the identity of taxpayers filing returns. Note, however, that the confidentiality provision would still allow for disclosure of the content of the agreement in response to: (1) an inter-government exchange of information agreement in which the entity provides the taxpayer’s name and taxpayer identification number; (2) a statutory requirement; or (3) a lawful order.
The new federal partnership income tax audit rules, scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2018, will have significant implications for the state and local taxation of partnerships and their partners. Most, but not all, states that impose a net income-based tax adopt by reference the federal definition of taxable income, but those that do typically adjust that income to reflect differences between state and federal tax policies. Moreover, state revenue departments generally do not regard themselves as being bound by Internal Revenue Service interpretations of the Internal Revenue Code even when substantive Code provisions are incorporated into state law by reference. The federal statutory rules relating to partnership audits are procedural rules and not ones of substantive tax law, so they will not be automatically adopted by states that generally conform to Internal Revenue Code provisions relating to taxable income. State legislatures may decide to adopt some or all of the federal statutory rules, or they may decide to adopt none of them. Arizona has already adopted its own version of the federal rules, and other state revenue departments are considering recommending to their legislatures that the legislatures take similar action, but most states have not reacted to the federal rules at this time. (more…)
The No Regulation Without Representation Act of 2017 (NRWRA) is scheduled for a hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law on Tuesday, July 25 at 10:00 am EDT in 2141 Rayburn House Office Building. The bill was introduced by Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) last month with House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) as one of seven original co-sponsors. As described in more detail below, the bill would codify the Bellas Hess “physical presence” requirement upheld by the US Supreme Court in Quill and make that requirement applicable to sales, use and other similar transactional taxes, notice and reporting requirements, net income taxes and other business activity taxes. Extending the concept to an area far beyond state taxation, the bill would also require the same physical presence for a state or locality to regulate the out-of-state production, manufacturing or post-sale disposal of any good or service sold to locations within its jurisdictional borders.
In the last Congress, the Business Activity Tax Simplification Act of 2015 (BATSA) would have codified a physical presence requirement in the context of business activity taxes (e.g., net income and gross receipts taxes). However, the scope of NRWRA’s limitations on interstate regulation and tax differs from the standard set forth in BATSA. Specifically, under BATSA, assigning an employee to a state constitutes physical presence, whereas under NRWRA a company does not have physical presence until it employs more than two employees in the state (or a single employee if he or she is in the state and provides design, installation or repair services or “substantially assists” in establishing or maintaining a market). Under NRWRA, activities related to the potential or actual purchase of goods or services in the state or locality are not a physical presence if the final decision to purchase is made outside of the jurisdiction. (more…)
Can a seller have nexus with a state – so as to be obligated to collect and remit that state’s sales and use taxes – only in connection with certain sales that seller makes into that state? In this article, the authors explore the concept that only certain transactions may be subject to that obligation, depending on the extent of the seller’s connection with that state.
Originally published in State Tax Notes, July 3, 2017.
The Connecticut Department of Revenue Services (DRS) recently issued demand letters to many remote sellers requiring that they either: (a) provide electronic sales records for all individual sales shipped to a Connecticut address over the past three calendar years; or (b) register to collect and remit Connecticut sales and use tax. This action is consistent with statements made by DRS Commissioner, Kevin Sullivan, via a press release in March and more recently at a Federation of Tax Administrator’s (FTA) presentation on the topic two weeks ago. Sullivan’s comments at the FTA meeting indicated that state tax administrators “will move from hoping Congress will help” to taking action into their own hands.
For remote sellers with no physical presence in Connecticut that don’t wish to voluntarily collect and remit sales and use tax (consistent with the US Supreme Court’s precedent in Quill and Bellas Hess), they are given only one option–provide DRS with a semi-colon delimited text file containing 16 fields of data–including customer names, customer addresses, ship to addresses, item descriptions and quantities sold. But supplying such personal data about customers intrudes upon the privacy and First Amendment rights of the customer, and unconstitutionally deprives remote sellers of their property right in the data set without due process of law. Of equal concern, some sellers question whether DRS is appropriately limited in its ability to disclose or share the customer data it seeks.
First, disclosure of the records DRS is requesting from remote sellers would be a significant intrusion on their customers’ privacy. The records requested include disclosure of customer names, addresses, shipping state, sales price and specific product(s) purchased. This can be highly sensitive information. Merely linking a particular online retailer to a specific customer may reveal information about the customer’s health issues, political leanings, sexual orientation, personal tastes and financial circumstances. By collecting shipping addresses, DRS will learn when an individual has a gift purchase delivered to a different address, revealing what could be a personal (and highly private) relationship. Moreover, some sellers question whether Connecticut law adequately protects the confidentiality of the information DRS is attempting to collect, leaving the possibility that the information could be shared with other government agencies and potentially used for purposes other than collection of sales and use tax.
Second, for remote sellers that offer books, music, videos and other forms of expressive content, the DRS request violates the customers’ First Amendment protections. In 2010, a US District Court held that an online retailer’s North Carolina customers’ First Amendment rights were implicated by a similar content disclosure requirement on audit. See Amazon.com LLC v. Lay, 758 F. Supp. 2d 1154, 1169 (W.D. Wash. 2010). The First Amendment protects a buyer from having the expressive content of that buyer’s purchase of books, music and audiovisual material disclosed to the government. Thus, First Amendment rights are implicated when the government seeks disclosure of reading, listening and viewing habits. As a result, the North Carolina Department of Revenue was enjoined from [...]
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