Nicole Ford – SALT Savvy

Maryland Court of Appeals Rules that Travelocity is not Required to Collect and Remit Tax Prior to Enactment of Maryland’s Accommodations Intermediary Law

August 30, 2021 By Lindsay LaCava, Nicole Ford and Varuni Balasubramaniam 6 Mins Read

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.

A Question of Fact: Illinois Tax Tribunal Denies Summary Judgment Motion in Unitary Business Case

August 9, 2021 By Maria Eberle and Nicole Ford 10 Mins Read

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.

SALT Savvy: Coast-to-Coast SALT Updates – October

November 23, 2020 By David Pope, Nicole Ford, Drew Hemmings and Jimmy Lucas 1 Min Read

The Baker McKenzie SALT team presented the fourth session of its monthly webinar series covering coast-to-coast state and local tax developments on October 7, 2020. If you were unable to attend the session, links to the recording and materials are provided below: View the recorded webinar Download the materials

New York State Issues Personal Income Tax Sourcing Guidance for Nonresident Employees Telecommuting Due to COVID-19 Pandemic

October 28, 2020 By Maria Eberle, Lindsay LaCava, David Pope, Mark Yopp, Nicole Ford, Dmitrii Gabrielov, Trevor Mauck and Michael Tedesco 7 Mins Read

The New York State Department of Taxation and Finance (“Department”) recently published guidance stating that a nonresident’s income will be sourced to New York State unless the nonresident’s remote work location meets the “bona fide employer office” exception to the “convenience of the employer test.” Specifically, the Department addressed a question in its FAQs regarding how to source income for Personal Income Tax purposes where a nonresident’s primary office is in New York, but the…