Many business owners, especially owners who are thinking of selling their business, wonder if an ESOP is a good ownership transition option for them. The answer is not always easy to determine but an ESOP is something that should be explored.
Having spent more than a decade working with taxpayers and Department employees on sales and use tax audits and refund requests, I find that responding to documentation requests from the Department can either be an exercise in pragmatism or an exercise in preventing auditors from murdering a taxpayer’s business by a thousand cuts. The reality is that accumulating and providing documentation is easier for some taxpayers than for others. Similarly, the requirements laid out by some states, or by some auditors, are more burdensome than by others.
One of the largest sources of stress for a taxpayer with significant federal tax debts is whether the IRS can take his or her house. For many taxpayers, the family residence is the most important source of their wealth. In addition, it is not just their house, but their home—a source of happiness and joy and family community. The prospect of losing a home therefore not only threatens financial loss, but it is often emotionally taxing as well.
Many 501(c)(3) organizations receive a property tax statement on a newly acquired property and ask: "As a 501(c)(3) organization, aren't we exempt from property tax?"
This week, we turn to international transactions that involve licenses or the provision or performance of e-commerce services.
The transfer or use of intangibles generally is a complicated area of taxation, and one that continues to evolve.
As I ask organizations, big and small, what sales and use tax issues cause them the biggest headaches, the answers are overwhelmingly the same – taxability and apportionment of both software and direct mail. I’m going to save direct mail for another day. But for those who are unconcerned about your organization’s treatment of software, I’m here today to read you the riot act.
Yes, taxpayers can opt out! While the monthly payments of the enhanced child tax credits, passed last spring by Congress as part of the American Rescue Plan, are helpful to many American families, they could actually create issues for others, with some taxpayers actually owing money to the federal government next year if they were to receive such tax credits now.
Companies that hire independent contractors are not obligated to withhold income taxes or employment taxes (such as Social Security and Medicare) or pay the employer share of employment taxes and unemployment insurance. But, just because an employer labels its workers “independent contractors,” as opposed to “employees,” doesn’t make it so.
Since 1959, taxpayers have been relying on a federal law—Public Law 86-272—to protect them from having to file state income tax returns in states where the taxpayers’ in-state activities are limited to just soliciting sales of tangible personal property. On August 4, 2021, the Multistate Tax Commission (MTC) member states voted 20-0 to revise the MTC’s “Statement of Information” regarding Public Law 86-272 in an attempt to eviscerate the federal law’s protections.