Our Sales and Use Tax Guides

Multistate Guide to Sales and Use Tax Audits

The stated goals of virtually all taxing agencies include ensuring that the tax laws are enforced fairly, objectively, and uniformly, and that taxpayers pay no less and no more than their legislatively mandated obligations. Although these goals are laudable, the author rarely has encountered circumstances where auditors, their supervisors, and administrators have applied more than lip service toward achieving them. In an environment where enacting tax increases amounts to political suicide, most taxing agencies feel that they must use the audit process as a means of extracting as many additional dollars as possible from those taxpayers unfortunate enough to be selected for review.

The 2011 Multistate Guide to Sales and Use Tax Audits is intended to improve the taxpayer’s chances in what often is an unfairly weighted contest. It provides general and state-specific guidance toward preparing for, managing and protesting sales and use tax audits in the 45 states (plus the District of Columbia) that impose such taxes. Highlights include the following:

• The latest changes in laws, regulations, and procedures pertaining to state sales and use tax audits;
• The most recent forms, applications, and procedural guidance for filing sales and use tax audit protests, refund claims, offers in compromise, and settlements;
• Updated information on changes in sales tax rates and statutes of limitations;
• A comprehensive update of each state’s exemption certificates including the most recent versions, available on the accompanying CD-ROM.
• A discussion of the latest state efforts toward sales and use tax uniformity, including developments concerning the Multistate Tax Commission, the Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement, and the most recent incarnations of their multistate sales and use tax exemption certificates;
• Updated directories of telephone numbers, physical addresses, and Web sites of the applicable state taxing agencies.

Multistate Guide to Sales and Use Tax: Construction

Multistate Guide to Sales and Use Tax: Construction guides tax professionals representing construction contractors through the bewildering maze of state sales and use tax rules governing their industry. While the rules for contractors in individual states are more complex than most, the confusion can increase exponentially when a contractor does business in several states. Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have enacted comprehensive sales and use tax laws, and each of these 46 bodies of law is different from all the others.

This volume addresses all of the construction-related state sales and use tax issues in one place. It will help contractors understand and comply with the rules, describe the sales and use tax audit process, provide tips for dealing with audits and auditors, and offer guidelines for protesting audits when the proposed assessments are unfair. Highlights include:

• Differing state concepts of sales and use tax applicability to construction contracts;
• Updated information on state exemptions and exclusions; including state-to-state variations;
• State treatments of prime/subcontractor relationships;
• Detailed information on construction contractor procedures and defenses; and
• Updated state agency telephone, address, and Internet directories.

Note: this book is currently available in electronic format only.