Masha represents public and private companies, trusts, estates and high-net-worth individuals in complex tax disputes. She has handled all stages of tax controversies – voluntary disclosures, audits, administrative appeals, tax court, district court and appellate litigation.
Masha’s experience includes resolving and litigating numerous types of tax disputes:
- State Corporate Income and Franchise Taxes, including statutory and constitutional issues relating to physical presence and economic nexus, unitary business group composition, business and non-business income, allocation and apportionment issues (including sales factor sourcing), state tax impact of section 338(h)(10) elections and the section 382 net operating loss limitation;
- Sales and Use Taxes, including nexus, taxation of goods and services (e.g. computer software and software as a service, telecommunication services, sales of electricity, advertising, prepared food), bundled transactions (taxable and nontaxable items or services sold together), sales for resale, definition of “sales price” (e.g. cost of goods sold, services necessary to complete the sale, delivery charges, discounts, consideration received from third parties), sourcing, exemptions (e.g. industrial production, capital equipment, advertising, occasional sales, waste management, purely public charities), qui tam actions and voluntary disclosures;
- Federal and International Tax Disputes, including section 482 transfer pricing, withholding taxes, transferee liability, voluntary disclosures, offshore tax matters (e.g. FBARs, FATCA, foreign pensions, income, trusts and entities), criminal tax matters, responding to IRS summons (including third-party summons), section 469 passive/active and section 183 hobby loss;
- Real and Personal Property Taxes, including state-assessed property (railroads, pipelines) and exempt property (public hospitals, nursing homes, churches and church property and institutions of purely public charity);
- Other State and Local Taxes, including:
- Tobacco Products Tax,
- MinnesotaCare Tax,
- Insurance Premiums Tax,
- Withholding Taxes (including employee versus independent contractor),
- Minneapolis Entertainment Tax; and
- State Individual Income Tax, including residency, personal and officer liability, criminal tax matters, section 469 passive/active and section 183 hobby loss.
Masha serves clients from a variety of industries, including retail, product distribution, manufacturing, financial services, insurance, computer software and hardware, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, aerospace/automotive, hotel, cooperatives, restaurants, entertainment and photographic equipment and supplies.
Masha works closely with our corporate and securities practices in assisting clients with multistate tax planning, advising clients on the state and local tax implications of corporate transactions, including multistate analysis of mergers and acquisitions to achieve state tax efficiencies (including nexus and apportionment issues), conducting due diligence investigations to uncover potential state tax liabilities, drafting state tax provisions in agreements to provide clients with proper protections and recourse regarding state taxes and conducting multistate surveys of the tax treatment of a wide variety of business activities, including drop shipment and dock sale transactions, advertising services, digital goods, software (including software as a service and cloud-based computing) and state thresholds for withholding taxes.
