Susan Bittick | TaxConnections

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Louisiana revenue officials announced that the state’s 2013 Tax Amnesty Program (“Program”) will begin September 23, 2013 and end November 22, 2013. The Program applies to all taxes administered by the Louisiana Department of Revenue (“Department”), except motor fuels taxes, and provides taxpayers an opportunity to avoid all penalties and to get a waiver of half of the interest that would otherwise be owed on the unpaid taxes. Taxpayers must apply to participate and be approved by the Department to meet the Program’s qualification criteria. In announcing dates for the 2013 amnesty period, Revenue Secretary Tim Barfield said all qualified taxpayers accepted into the Program will receive a letter from the Department accompanied by information about the tax periods and amounts owed, as well as payment instructions that the taxpayer should follow to ensure payment is made before the amnesty ends on November 22, 2013. Barfield also announced that the agency has created a website to provide and update information to taxpayers about the Program.

The previously announced Program was authorized by House Bill 456 (“H.B. 456”), which lawmakers passed, and Governor Bobby Jindal signed into law in June 2013. The bill established parameters for the Program, including the criteria for participation, and directed the Department to offer amnesty in 2013, 2014, and 2015 during periods to be set by the agency.

Amnesty is available for the following taxes: Read More

Written by Advertorial | Posted in State And Local Tax (SALT)

In the aftermath of a 2011 court defeat involving software taxation, California revenue officials appear poised to seek legislative assistance in undoing the court’s ruling and imposing sales and use taxes—retroactively—on a wide variety of computer software programs. California broadly levies taxes on the sale or use of tangible personal property in the state. However, there is a statutory carve out from these taxes for computer software provided to a user under the so-called Technology Transfer Agreements (TTAs). In recognition of the notion that software is intangible property, these taxes apply in the case of a TTA only to the value of any tangible medium, such as a disk or magnetic tape, on which the licensed program may be transferred to the software user.

The State Board of Equalization (BOE), which administers these taxes, had, by rule, limited the favorable treatment for TTAs to transfers of custom software, not pre-written, or “canned” software programs. In Nortel Networks, Inc. v. Board of Equalization, 191 Cal. App. 4th 1259, 119 Cal. Rptr. 3d 905 (2011), the California Court of Appeals invalidated these rules and awarded the telecommunications equipment maker a multimillion dollar refund.

The California Supreme Court declined to review the decision, leaving taxpayers with a clear victory. But, for two years, the BOE has refused to give up the fight. The agency acknowledged that it is holding back millions of dollars of refund claims filed by other taxpayers. All the while, the BOE appears to be searching for ways to eliminate taxpayer rights to recover or to dramatically reduce the amounts they are entitled to receive:

• It has mounted a collateral challenge—this time against Lucent Technologies, Inc. — in a Los Angeles courtroom in an attempt to re-litigate the Nortel issues. Read More

Written by Advertorial | Posted in Specialty Tax Incentives • State And Local Tax (SALT)