On March 7, 2018, the NY Tax Department issued its first income tax advisory opinion of the year. The content of the advisory opinion, a review of the rules governing the timing of the tax credits associated with the state’s Brownfield Cleanup Program, isn’t particularly noteworthy. What struck us here at Noonan’s Notes, and made the opinion blog-worthy, is the timing of the opinion. Though the Tax Department has many functions (e.g., return design and processing, enforcement/audit, tax collection, etc.), this opinion may illustrate that additional resources should be allocated to its interpretation and education functions.
Here at Noonan’s Notes Blog, we’ve been closely following the process of the Governor’s final 2019 budget bill (see my prior report on the proposed budget here).
For years we’ve been following a ticking income tax time bomb of sorts, dealing with a big 2017 issue for hedge fund managers receiving deferred income. We first started talking about this in 2013 (click here for the article) and followed-up on it a few times later (including here), wondering how states would react to all this. But up until last week, we’ve heard nothing from the New York tax department on the issue.