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On Tuesday, the New York Supreme Court granted Baker McKenzie’s motion to dismiss the New York Attorney General’s (“AG”) complaint against B&H Foto and Electronics Corp. regarding a purported False Claims Act (“FCA”) violation. The AG incorrectly alleged that B&H made a false claim on its tax return when they did not collect sales tax on “instant savings,” a type of vendor funding where a manufacturer reduces B&H’s purchase price of a particular item based…

On April 30, 2021, the Court of Appeals of Maryland held in Travelocity.com LP v. Comptroller of Md., No. 14, 2021 Md. LEXIS 200 (Apr. 30, 2021), that the taxpayer, an online travel company, was not required to collect and remit state sales and use tax prior to the enactment of Maryland’s accommodations intermediary law in 2015. This ruling by the state’s highest court, which overruled the lower courts’ decisions, helps clarify the “pre-accommodations intermediary law” tax obligations of online travel companies, and may also be helpful in understanding the impact of marketplace facilitator law enactments more generally.

In an order released in July 2021, the Illinois Tax Tribunal denied a taxpayer’s motion for summary judgment in a “unitary business” case, finding that there were disputed issues of fact as to whether the taxpayer was engaged in a unitary business with a company that the taxpayer sold.  See Christopher v. Illinois Dep’t of Rev., 19 TT 131 (Ill. Tax Trib. Nov. 24, 2020, released July 2021).  The taxpayer, T. Christopher Holding Company (“Holding Company”), claimed that it was not unitary with Vogue International, LLC (“Operating Company”), and thus its gain from the sale of Operating Company could not be included in Holding Company’s Illinois business income under U.S. constitutional principles and Illinois law.  However, the Tribunal found that the Illinois Department of Revenue (“Department”) had presented sufficient evidence to establish a disputed issue of material fact that rendered summary judgment on this issue inappropriate.

On April 7, 2021, the New York Legislature passed the New York Budget Bill for fiscal year 2022 (S2509–C/A3009-C) (the “Enacted Budget”), ushering in a slew of tax increases for businesses and high-income earners.  As of the time of publication of this post, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had not yet signed the Enacted Budget, but has indicated that he will do so. The Enacted Budget is the result of a months-long negotiation process that…