Our Services for the Restaurant and Hospitality Industries

When your restaurant is facing an audit or wondering how to respond to one, McClellan Davis has the sales tax lawyers and sales tax experts who can help. Since 1980, our firm has represented thousands of clients — including hundreds of California restaurants, hotels and event planners for sales and use tax audits and appeals.

McClellan Davis can provide your business with sales tax audit management & defense, sales tax appeals, claims for refund or reverse audits, or professional compliance help for an audit by the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (formerly known as the Board of Equalization) or other state taxing agency. Our sales tax attorneys, CPAs and consultants have a significant amount of experience with restaurant sales tax liabilities and are able to provide you with the expertise you need.

Our staff of former state sales tax auditors and sales tax attorneys offer a variety of services for the food and hospitality industries, including:

Sales Tax Audit Management: Because many of our professionals are former sales tax auditors, supervisors, reviewers or trainers, they have the insider knowledge needed to guide you through the audit process. We can even have the audit transferred to our office, in some cases. We work directly with the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration to minimize interruptions to your business, permitting you to focus your time and resources on what matters most – operating your business!
Sales tax audit defense and appeals: If your audit results in an overstated sales tax liability, we can file a petition for redetermination and represent your business through the administrative appeals process. Our sales tax attorneys and auditors have a very high rate of success obtaining reductions to sales tax liabilities. Contact us today for a consultation.
Settlements and Compromises: In cases where the best course of action is to settle, our sales tax consultants prepare and submit paperwork, negotiate with the state and seek to resolve the case with a favorable settlement.
Litigation Support: If your restaurant or hospitality business’ protest reaches the judicial level, we have attorneys that can represent your business directly, through the entire process. We can also provide expert witness and consultation services to assist your attorney in a sales tax court case.
Single or Multistate Return Preparation: Nobody has to tell you what a time-consuming and laborious process filing tax returns can be — even more so when your business operates in multiple states. Let our in-house staff manage your filing cost-effectively and efficiently so you can focus your time on operating your business and rest assured that your returns are being prepared accurately and filed timely.
Refund Claims and Reverse Audits: In situations where your business has overpaid the tax, we will work with you and the agency to get your money back by filing a sales tax refund. Usually, we are able to do this on a contingency fee basis — so if you don’t get money back, you pay us nothing.
Compliance Services: The best way to defeat a restaurant sales tax liability is to avoid it from being assessed in the first place. Our expert sales tax advisors can provide your business with the necessary sales and use tax guidance to help enable your business to accurately apply sales tax to your transactions and to properly document your sales, purchases and any applicable sales tax exemptions.

What to do When You’ve Just Received an Audit Notice?

If your restaurant or hospitality business has just received notice of a tax audit, McClellan Davis can create a custom strategy for your California restaurant sales tax audit or California hospitality audit. We’ll work directly with the state auditor, handle correspondence and do all we can to keep your restaurant, hotel or other business operate without significant interruption. Call our office to speak to one of our professionals; we’ll be glad to provide you with a free initial consultation to address your sales and use tax concerns with no obligation.

What to do when you receive a bill?

Whether your audit was managed in-house or by an outside advisor, McClellan Davis can review the results of your audit and advise you of your options so an informed decision can be made. Sometimes the most prudent business decision is to accept the results of an audit, but you need to have the right person review the audit results to make the right decision. Typically, we are able to uncover opportunities for significant adjustments to your sales tax liability and we will provide you with a free consultation and/or a capped fee audit review to help you make the right decision. Click here to view some of our past results.

Why Choose McClellan Davis, LLC?

McClellan Davis has a long history of helping businesses with a variety of tax liability and compliance issues. We’ve represented thousands of clients — from small sole proprietors to large multinational corporations. Our qualified staff of former state auditors and attorneys, our focused practice on sales and use tax, coupled with extensive experience provides us with a unique ability to help your business. If you have a California restaurant or other food related business, hotel, resort or other hospitality-focused company dealing with California sales tax complications, let us help. Our consultants are highly qualified and able to give you the support you need.

Blog Articles

Read our blog about some of the common problems restaurants have when facing a sales tax audit: