On October 17, 2017, the New York State Division of Tax Appeals and Tax Appeals Tribunal (collectively “DTA”) submitted its annual report to the Governor and heads of the Senate and Assembly for the 2016-17 fiscal year. Numbers-wise, we don’t see a tremendous change over last year in the outcomes of Administrative Law Judge and Tax Appeals Tribunal cases.
For years, there have been whispers about a big 2017 tax issue for hedge-fund managers. What’s the deal?
Just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about multistate corporate income tax apportionment, the states start switching up the rules!
Last Friday, members of the NYS Legislature introduced a bill aimed at clarifying the definition of “permanent place of abode” under Tax Law § 605(b)(1)(B) for statutory residency purposes. Under that statute, a person is generally taxable as a resident if they meet a two-pronged test: (1) maintain a “permanent place of abode” in New York and (2) spend more than 183 days in New York.
Clients who are domiciled in Texas, Florida, and US Virgin Islands may end up spending additional time in New York this year, due to Hurricanes Harvey or Irma. Those affected might be concerned about the impact of that additional New York time on their New York residency situation. Clients should be aware that the New York State Department of Taxation of Finance has not put out any information to taxpayers affected, or potentially affected, by these storms. To our knowledge, the Department has never issued an official policy regarding the treatment of days spent in New York due to a mandatory evacuation from a primary residence in another state, or damage to that residence.
For years, practitioners and taxpayers have struggled with the cumbersome, four-page power-of-attorney form that the New York Tax Department has required taxpayers to use when they wanted to appoint a representative to help them with their tax matter.
But this week, the NYS Tax Department rolled out a new web application where POAs can be filed online.
Last week, another great domicile case was issued by New York’s Division of Tax Appeals. The case, entitled Matter of Patrick, chronicled a movie-esque love affair between long-lost high school sweethearts and—more importantly for our purposes—another win for a taxpayer in a change-of-domicile case.
The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance has issued a new sales tax ruling on the taxability of club dues at a social club. In an advisory opinion released May 24, tax department held that fees charged to nonmembers for club-sponsored activities are not subject to tax merely as a result of the club’s relationship to its members and that the nature of each activity should determine its taxability. The ruling was also written up in a recent Tax Notes article, in which yours truly was quoted.
Last week the Tax Department published another advisory opinion on a “software as a service” issue, continuing the trend of rulings on software sales “in the cloud.” A few years ago, I wrote an article on sales tax issues in the cloud-computing context generally, and we have also covered New York cases where the issue has come up. In this most recent opinion, the taxpayer asked whether charges for its “video generating services” were subject to sales tax. And not surprisingly, the Department concluded that the sales were taxable, continuing its trend of taxing almost everything that moves in the cloud.
Many people experience sticker shock with respect to sales tax and other government-imposed fees (i.e., title fees) when it comes time to purchase or lease a new vehicle.