State Tax Assessment
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
State Tax Amnesty Update
State tax amnesty update: The Arkansas amnesty program (7/1/04 - 12/31/04) is in full swing and will be through the end of the year. Nebraska (8/1/04 - 10/31/04) began a 3-month program in August. Mississippi (9/1/04 - 12/31/04) and West Virginia (9/1/04 - 11/1/04) programs begin in September.
COMMENT: If you need assistance with anonymous negotiations in any of these states, or in any other states, just Ask the Experts at http://www.statetaxcentral.com/ask.html for more information.
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Arkansas Tax Amnesty Program
http://www.state.ar.us/dfa/amnesty.html
Arkansas began accepting Applications for Amnesty on July 1 and will continue to do so until September 30, 2004. The amnesty covers virtually all taxes in the state; however it does not include property tax, unemployment tax, insurance premium tax, and franchise tax.
In return for payment of taxes, the state will waive all interest, penalties and criminal prosecution.
NOTE:
Payment of taxes must be made within 3 months of applying for amnesty and no later than December 31, 2004.
Additional information may be obtained from:
Taxpayer Assistance Office
Department of Finance and Administration
PO Box 8067
Little Rock, AR 72203-8067
or by calling 501-682-7751 or 1-800-340-9509.
Or, you can Ask the Experts at State Tax Central for assistance.
Monday, July 05, 2004
State Tax Central : Tools : Cases : Federal
http://www.statetaxcentral.com/Tools/Cases/Federal/
We've recently added links to 69 of the most important U.S. Supreme Court cases dealing with state taxation. All the major cases are here: ASARCO, Butler Brothers, Complete Auto Transit, Moorman Manufacturing, National Bellas Hess, Quill, Tyler Pipe and many more.
Our listings currently include summaries and citations for many of the cases and will be expanded over the next several weeks. This is an excellent training and research tool that all practitioners should be familiar with.
Monday, June 07, 2004
Upcoming State Tax Administrators Conferences
By Ronald K. Bodtcher, Publisher of State Tax Assessment
FTA Annual Conference
Providence, RI
June 6 - 9, 2004
http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/meet/am_bulletin.html
The FTA annual conference is currently meeting in Providence, Rhode Island. This morning featured a Commissioner's only breakfast, followed by a general meeting of all administrators. The FTA President's Award Luncheon was held at noon, and concurrent sessions in Technology, Legal and Tax Policy, Compliance and Management are concluding as I write this. We will update you on this conference as the meetings take place over the next two days.
SEATA (Southeastern States)
Asheville, NC
July 5 - 8, 2004
http://www.seata2004.net/
MSATA (MidWestern States)
Des Moines, IA
August 15 - 17, 2004
http://www.state.ia.us/tax/msata
WSATA (Western States)
Seattle, WA
September 26 - 29, 2004
Web site under construction
NESTOA (NorthEastern States)
Oqunquit, ME
September 26 - 29, 2004
http://www.maine.gov/revenue/nestoa/
COMMENT:
These are conferences of state tax administrators. They involve technical sessions, as well as informal gatherings. If you want to meet the top state tax administrators in the country and find out what they are up to, these conferences are a great opportunity.
Thursday, May 06, 2004
California General Tax Amnesty 2005
Lynda Gledhill, San Francisco Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
"Assemblywoman Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park (Los Angeles County), has introduced a bill that would provide for a two-month amnesty in 2005 for both individual and corporate taxpayers.
Under her bill, taxpayers would have to pay the tax and interest owed but would not face fines or criminal prosecution for missed or underpayments from 2002 and earlier. Once the amnesty is over, the fines and interest rates for delinquent payments will increase, if the bill becomes law."
COMMENT:
The last general tax amnesty was in 1985 and brought in $154 million for the state. The Franchise Tax Board estimates that the currently proposed program could bring in $545 million.
California collected $1.3 billion though a tax amnesty (which expired April 15 of this year) that targeted individuals and corporations using illegal tax shelters. The FTB estimated that the program would collect only $90 million, and the unexpected collections have helped close the state's $15 billion budget shortfall.
Friday, April 23, 2004
State and Local Tax Burdens 2004
"Each state’s total tax burden (taxes as a percentage of income) is a combination of federal, state, and local taxes. It can be instructive, however, to strip out the federal tax burden and compare just the tax burdens of states and localities.
Follow each row [of the accompanying table] to see how a state's ranking changes when federal taxes are added back in. Generally, high-income states rise because, with their high costs of living and commensurately higher salaries, they are hit harder by the progressive federal income tax. Low-income states that have high state-local tax burdens fall in the ranking when federal taxes are added in."
COMMENT:
In case our posting of Tax Freedom Day 2004 didn't impress you, here is another way of looking at federal, state and local taxes borne by taxpayers. On average, we pay 10 percent of our incomes in the form of state and local taxes, including sales, income and property taxes. We pay an additional 18 percent of our incomes to the federal government.
Add those two figures together, and we pay 28 percent of our incomes in various taxes. That's more than one quarter of our incomes: more than many of us spend on housing, food or transportation. No wonder Tax Freedom Day occurred on April 11, which was 102 days or 28 percent into the year 2004.
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Tax Freedom Day 2004
"According to Tax Foundation calculations using the latest government data on income and taxes, Tax Freedom Day® in 2004 will be celebrated on April 11th, the earliest Tax Freedom Day for 37 years.
April 11th is three days earlier than 2003’s Tax Freedom Day of April 14 and an amazing 21 days earlier than in 2000, when the boom and bubble pushed tax burdens to a record high, and Tax Freedom Day was postponed until May 2."
COMMENT:
Tax Freedom Day is the day when Americans have earned enough money to pay their total tax bill for the year. Of course, this varies greatly by state.
For example, Tax Freedom Day in Alaska was March 26. In Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina, it was April 1. Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Dakota all celebrated Tax Freedom day on April 2, while North Dakota and Iowa celebrated on April 3.
Contrast those dates with California and Nevada (April 13), Wyoming (April 14), Maine and Washington (April 15), Rhode Island (April 16), Massachusetts (April 18), New Jersey (April 19), New York (April 27) and Connecticut (April 28).
