Texas—never known for doing anything on a small-scale—is starting off 2017 with what is likely to be billions of dollars worth of good news for the Comptroller. On January 6, the Third District Court of Appeals released a substituted opinion in American Multi-Cinema Inc. v. Hegar, No. 03-14-00397-CV, a case dealing with the scope of the Texas franchise tax costs of goods sold (“COGS”) deduction. The Comptroller’s office predicted that the court’s original decision, issued…
The dispute in California over taxpayers’ ability to elect to use the evenly weighted, three-factor (i.e., property factor, payroll factor, and sales factor) business income apportionment formula provided by the Multistate Tax Compact (the “Compact”) has come to an end. On October 11, 2016, the US Supreme Court denied the taxpayers’ petition for certiorari in The Gillette Company, et al. v. California Franchise Tax Board, et al., No. 15-1442 — one of the most highly publicized MTC apportionment election cases.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2315, the Mobile Workforce State Income Tax Simplification Act of 2015 (“Mobile Workforce Act” or “Act”), on September 21, 2016. The Senate received the House-approved bill on September 22, 2016, and its ultimate fate remains unclear.
The Texas Supreme Court recently granted a petition for review in ETC Marketing, Ltd v. Harris County Appraisal District, 467 S.W.3d 501 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2015, pet. granted). The question before the high court in ETC Marketing, Ltd is whether an operator of an intrastate natural gas pipeline in Texas is required to pay ad valorem taxes on the value of 33 billion cubic feet of gas stored in a Harris County reservoir. The stakes are high as the 33 billion cubic feet of gas could give rise to a $162 million ad valorem tax bill.