Posted
by

(This article originally was published by Law360 on May 17, 2019.)

In the last year, several state legislatures have enacted laws and several state courts have published decisions on whether software as a service, or SaaS, is subject to sales and use tax. These developments impact many SaaS providers, especially due to the expanded nexus provisions that many states are enacting after the United States Supreme Court’s South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc. decision.1 The states have gone in different directions—Indiana enacted legislation exempting SaaS, while Iowa and Rhode Island began taxing SaaS. The Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board and the Pennsylvania Board of Finance and Revenue have both issued decisions clarifying the taxability of SaaS offerings.

Continue Reading ›

Posted
by

TAKEAWAYS

On April 25, 2019, California enacted comprehensive marketplace facilitator legislation. Many said last fall this would be an impossible feat given the divided constituency of the California Legislature on whether all marketplace facilitators should be treated equally for purposes of imposing California’s Sales and Use Tax law. Consider the impossible achieved. California’s sweeping Marketplace Facilitator Act, adopted under Assembly Bill (AB) 147, treats virtually all marketplaces the same.

Continue Reading ›

Posted
by

(This article was originally published by Law360 on April 16, 2019.)

In recent years, many have openly criticized California for its income tax litigating position involving out-of-state companies that hold passive, minority interests in pass-through entities doing business in California. The state argues these out-of-state companies are doing business in California solely by virtue of their passive, minority investment in pass-throughs that conduct business in California. The state has lost the issue twice in the last two years. Most recently in September 2018 before an administrative appellate body in a nonprecedential decision involving a 25% passive ownership interest and the other in 2017 at the California Court of Appeal in a published decision involving a 0.2% passive ownership interest.

Continue Reading ›

Posted
by

(This article was originally published by Law360 on March 18, 2019.)

When challenging a state tax assessment outside the tax agency that issued the assessment, taxpayers face a variety of obstacles. One is the presumption of correctness that often attaches to a tax agency’s determination. Judicial deference to a tax agency’s interpretation of a tax statute or regulation makes the taxpayer’s task even more difficult.

Continue Reading ›

Posted
by and

Three years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a portion of Maryland’s personal income tax scheme on grounds that it violated the dormant commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. In Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland v Wynne, the Court held that Maryland’s credit mechanism for income taxes paid to other states impermissibly discriminated against interstate commerce because it allowed a credit against state taxes paid but not county taxes, resulting in double taxation on some income earned outside the state.

Continue Reading ›

Posted
by

Pillsbury attorneys speak on a number of tax-related issues at the TEI Mergers & Acquisitions Seminar on March 7. Topics include Corporate, Sales/Use Tax, State Income Tax, Federal Income Tax, Property/Transfer Taxes, Regulatory, and Employment and Labor.