Texas Tax Roundup | March 2023: Flowback, Welding, Local Taxes, And More!

Welcome back to another Texas Tax Roundup! March 2023 brought us a lot of administrative action, especially for Texas sales or use tax. Let’s get started!

Rules

Franchise Tax

Apportionment

34 Tex. Admin. Code § 3.591 (Margin: Apportionment)—The Comptroller adopted his amendments outlined in our previous post to implement the Texas Supreme Court’s opinion in Sirius XM Radio, Inc. v. Hegar, No. 20-0462 (Tex. March 25, 2022).[1]

Notable Additions to the State Tax Automated Research System

Franchise Tax

Apportionment

Comptroller’s Decision No. 116,251, 116,252 (2023)— The ALJ upheld assessments of sales tax and franchise tax against an out-of-state corporate taxpayer for periods in which the corporation had only a single employee in Texas. The taxpayer was in the business of selling telecommunication services. The Comptroller had become aware of the taxpayer’s business activities in Texas due to information from the Texas Workforce Commission. The ALJ found that the presence of an employee in Texas created nexus for purposes of both sales and franchise tax.[2] Outside of asserting that Texas lacked jurisdiction to tax, the taxpayer didn’t provide any evidence showing that the assessments were incorrect.

Sales And Use Tax

Flowback Services
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Court Cases Franchise Tax

Welcome back to another for another edition of Texas Tax Roundup! We got some franchise tax apportionment, some sales and use tax in the oil and gas industry, and some mulling over the age-old question: Is a franchise tax an occupation tax? Let’s dive in!

Court Cases

Franchise Tax

Distinction from Occupation Tax

Swift Transp. Co. of Az., LLC v. Hegar, No. 13-21-00010-CV (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi-Edinburg Nov. 10, 2022)—The Thirteenth Court of Appeals held that the franchise tax wasn’t an occupation tax. Thus, Tex. Transp. Code § 20.001 (Certain Carries Exempt from Gross Receipts Tax), which exempts certain motor carriers from any occupation tax measured by gross receipts, didn’t apply to franchise tax. The court of appeals observed that Texas franchise taxes and occupations tax dated back to at least 1880, that both types of taxes were in existence when Section 20.001 was enacted, and that various statutes implied a distinction between these types of taxes. The court of appeals also distinguished as dicta (and thus nonbinding) insinuations in the case law that the franchise tax was an occupation tax or that that a franchise tax and an occupation was basically the same.[1]

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