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State & Local Tax

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In today’s fast-paced business world, you need ready access to tax counsel whose familiarity with your business can help assure responsive, strategic advice. And you need access to a wide range of legal disciplines to make timely, effective decisions for all aspects of your operations. Hodgson Russ attorneys are skilled coordinators of the many legal disciplines necessary to assist clients in making sound decisions.

The internationally recognized attorneys of the Hodgson Russ State & Local Tax (SALT) Practice Group focus on state and local tax matters and offer our clients unparalleled experience in all New York State and City tax issues. The group’s attorneys are also well versed in multistate, international, and cross-border tax matters. From planning and compliance to litigation and damage control, the SALT Group attorneys will provide legal solutions specifically tailored to meet your business requirements.

Consummate tax attorneys

What are some of the hallmarks of the Hodgson Russ SALT Practice? Solid legal skills, innovative approaches, and a broad business background. Hodgson Russ lawyers have the industry experience to know how complicated tax laws apply to your business and how state and city tax departments handle audits within your industry. Individual clients with state and local issues also value the sound judgment, discretion, and particularly the team approach of the group’s attorneys.

Experience has shown that working closely with our clients and their accountants or other tax advisers in a non-confrontational atmosphere most often leads to the best results. The SALT Group attorneys strive to put creativity to work for clients and to develop effective solutions to difficult situations. For instance, Hodgson Russ is the only firm ever to obtain a sanction against New York’s Tax Department for its failure to serve a timely answer, resulting in a default determination in our client’s favor. Another case resulted in a 10-year-old tax being declared unconstitutional by New York’s highest court. In other instances, when the law or the interpretive authority has run counter to clients’ interests, the SALT team has obtained policy, regulatory, or statutory changes.

Whether your issues involve planning and structuring, litigation, negotiation, or lobbying, Hodgson Russ has creativity and imagination that can prove to be an invaluable asset.

Unparalleled tax law services

From experience comes wisdom
Whether you are looking to change the law or to protest an assessment, you deserve to be heard by the appropriate official who can help you resolve your problem. How do you find this person? The tax laws and the departments that administer them can be confusing, and it is easy to get lost in the bureaucratic maze. Let Hodgson Russ be your guide.

From size comes strength
While other firms of similar size may have one attorney who occasionally handles state and local tax matters, the Hodgson Russ SALT Group has nine professionals experienced in areas that include audit and assessment defense, business succession planning, corporate structuring, income tax, business incentives, energy taxation, litigation, sales tax, and government relations.

Audit assistance
Hodgson Russ attorneys can help you navigate the murky waters of an audit, from sales and use taxes to personal income to corporation income and franchise taxes. No matter where you are in the audit process, be it initial contact or collections, the Hodgson Russ SALT Group can help you achieve a satisfactory resolution.

Litigation services
When litigation is inevitable, Hodgson Russ approaches it as both a business and a legal challenge. The Hodgson Russ SALT attorneys have represented hundreds of clients before the New York State and City administrative tax courts and are well versed in their procedural intricacies. Our attorneys handle a variety of judicial matters, including obtaining declaratory judgments and prosecuting judicial appeals from the administrative courts.

Our attorneys have advocated on behalf of clients in all of New York’s judicial and quasi-judicial institutions, from conciliation conferences to oral arguments before New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.

Government relations
The SALT Group’s strong Albany presence gives Hodgson Russ an edge at the legislative level to lobby effectively for or against changes in the tax law on your behalf. Our attorneys work closely with decision makers in the state and city tax departments, as well as with legislators and members of the legislative and executive tax writing staffs.

Multistate tax issues
Every day the world seems to grow smaller. Often the owners of businesses considered “local” find themselves doing business in other states and countries. New economy businesses, such as those involved in the Internet and wireless communications industries, often grow so rapidly they are doing business in dozens of jurisdictions before they realize their growth has unforeseen tax implications. The pace of innovation often leaves the tax law in the dust, confusing businesses and tax officials over how to interpret anachronistic laws and regulations.

Hodgson Russ SALT attorneys assist traditional companies branching out to other states, proactively helping clients structure business operations to limit those states in which they can be taxed. In other instances, clients are assisted in creating a plan of action for managing multistate tax compliance. The SALT team uses its proprietary Matrix planning tool to help clients quantify their exposures through a state-by-state analysis of audit risk and liability magnitude. Working closely with individual states and the Multistate Tax Commission, the Hodgson Russ SALT attorneys help clients negotiate favorable voluntary disclosure agreements to settle their liabilities and coordinate future tax compliance. With emerging technologies, clients receive guidance to determine where their products or services fit within the outdated language of state and local tax laws, and assistance in obtaining meaningful interpretations from various tax jurisdictions.

Hodgson Russ attorneys are available to work with you one-on-one or to become part of your team of tax professionals

Knowledge is power
Any lawyer can read the books necessary to become proficient in an area of law. The Hodgson Russ SALT Practice Group attorneys write the books. Recent publications written by our attorneys or to which they have contributed include:

• New York Tax Analysis (CCH)
• The 2005-2008 Guidebook to New York Taxes (CCH)
• The New York Residency & Allocation Audit Handbook (4th ed., CCH)
• Contesting New York Tax Assessments (NYSBA)
• State Tax Notes (Tax Analysts)
• The New York chapter of The Business Incentives Guide (CCH)
• The New York summary for Tax Analysts’ State Tax OneDisc (CD-ROM from Tax Analysts)
• New York Tax Highlights (bi-weekly publication by Corporate Tax Publishers)
• The New York chapter of The American Bar Association’s Sales and Use Tax Deskbook (1987-2007 ABA)

Practice restricted to U.S. law.