SALT Blog - SALT Blawg

On January 9, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, No. 17-1299.  A copy of the oral argument transcript can be accessed here.

In Hyatt, the Supreme Court is again revisiting the question of whether one state can be sued in another state’s courts.  The Hyatt litigation has been ongoing for two decades and has been before the U.S. Supreme Court on two previous occasions.  The case involves damages sought by Gilbert P. Hyatt for several torts allegedly committed by the Franchise Tax Board of California (“FTB”) in its ...

The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue (“Department”) issued Sales and Use Tax Bulletin 2019-01 in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, 585 U.S. ___ (2018). The Bulletin clarifies when marketplace and remote sellers, marketplace facilitators, and other vendors maintain a place of business in the state in light of Wayfair.

Wayfair upheld a South Dakota law that imposed economic nexus upon taxpayers who had $100,000 of sales or 200 transactions within the state in a given year. Previous U.S. Supreme Court case law, Quill Corp. v. North ...

By: Jennifer Weidler Karpchuk

Pennsylvania recently joined 29 other states and D.C. in legalizing medical marijuana. With the growing acceptance of the use of marijuana for medicinal — and in some states, recreational — purposes, a new industry booms. With that boom comes revenue to the states in the form of new taxes.

As with any tax and policy, it is important to understand the history of how we got to where we are today. But it is particularly important to see what has framed our cultural views of marijuana. Medicinal marijuana has a long history, dating back to ancient cultures ...

On October 2, 2017, South Dakota filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, bringing the first facial challenge to Quill Corp. v. North Dakota in front of the Court.

As mentioned previously, during August the South Dakota Supreme Court held oral arguments wherein South Dakota urged the court to reject its petition, which would allow it to expeditiously file a petition for cert with the US Supreme Court.  The South Dakota Supreme Court abided and quickly affirmed a March 2017 trial court decision granting the remote seller's motion for ...

On August 29, oral arguments were held in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. S.D., No. 28160, which challenges the state’s remote sales tax legislation, S.B. 106. 

Enacted during March 2016, S.B. 106 requires remote sellers to collect and remit tax to the state – even if they have no physical presence in the state – if they have more than $100,000 in sales or make more than 200 separate sales into South Dakota annually. The Bill was specifically crafted as a vehicle to undo the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992), which prohibits states from ...

On June 12, 2017, The Honorable James Sensenbrenner (R. WI 5^th District) introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives a bill, designated H.R. 2887, which would codify the nexus standard set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992).

The bill is set against the backdrop of multiple recent attempts by the states to persuade the Supreme Court to take a case that would revisit and overturn Quill.  Quill held that the dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibits a state (or local taxing authority) from imposing upon a retailer an ...

As previously reported on the SALT Blawg, Chamberlain Hrdlicka attorneys Stewart M. Weintraub and Adam M. Koelsch, together with Peter L. Faber of McDermott, of Will & Emery LLP, filed in the U.S. Supreme Court an amicus brief on behalf of the American College of Tax Counsel in support of the petitioners challenging a retroactive repeal of tax legislation by the state of Michigan.  Although the petitioners and the amici had asserted various reasons for granting certiorari, the most prominent of those assertions was that the repeal, stretching seven years into the past, violates the Due ...

Recently, in Elan Pharm. v. Division of Taxation, the Tax Court of New Jersey issued a non-binding opinion that further limits the Division of Taxation’s enforcement of the controversial “throw out rule.”

Sometimes, when a multi-state taxpayer apportions its income, that taxpayer will source a receipt to a state in which the receipt is not subject to tax, either because the state has chosen not to tax it or because the state is not able to do so. One reason that a receipt may not be taxable, and a reason at issue in Elan Pharm., is P.L. 86-272 -- a federal law that prohibits a state from ...

Just a few weeks ago, Chamberlain Hrdlicka attorneys Stewart M. Weintraub and Adam M. Koelsch, together with Peter L. Faber of McDermott, Will & Emery LLP, filed in the U.S. Supreme Court an amicus brief on behalf of the American College of Tax Counsel in support of the petitioners challenging the Michigan Court of Appeals’ September 2015 decision in Gillette Commercial Operations N. Am. v. Dep't of Treasury.

In the amicus, the attorneys argued that the Court of Appeals  had misapplied the holding of the Supreme Court in United States v. Carlton in order to sustain a retroactive repeal ...