Fall Committee Meetings

November 8 - 11, 2021
The SALT Attorney Training session, Uniformity Committee, Audit Committee, Nexus Committee, Strategic Planning Committee, and Executive Committee will be meeting in Alexandria, Virginia and Remotely.

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National Nexus Program

Visit the National Nexus Program page for more information.

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Georgetown University Law Center Partners with MTC

Georgetown Law and the Multistate Tax Commission (“MTC”) have partnered to provide a 20% tuition discount to state and local tax government attorneys and qualified non-attorney tax professionals who matriculate in the 2021-2022 LL.M., MSL, or SALT Certificate Distance Learning programs.

Important: April 1, 2021 is the deadline to qualify for the tuition discount now available through the MTC for state and local tax government lawyers and qualified tax professionals (“government employees”) applying for Fall 2021 admission to the Georgetown University Law Center’s Tax online distance education programs. Membership in MTC is not a precondition of enrollment

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News & Information

The Commission has Approved Two Uniformity Proposals for Recommendation to the States

The first proposal approved by the Commission is an alternative Model Statute for Combined Reporting following the Finnigan method. This is the method that states are moving toward—which treats the unitary group as a single taxpayer.

The second proposal includes revisions to the Statement Concerning Practices of the Multistate Tax Commission and Supporting States Under Public Law 86-272. These revisions address activities conducted via the Internet. The revised statement is available here.

Anatomy of a Domestic Tax Shelter

Tax Analysts published an article by MTC Senior Counsel Bruce Fort in its May 17, 2021 publications Tax Notes State, Tax Notes Federal and Tax Notes International entitled, “Anatomy of a Domestic Tax Shelter” regarding the use of so-called 80/20 companies as a means to artificially shift profits to non-taxed entities. The article describes the genesis of the domestic 80/20 company exclusion from the states’ water’s edge combined reporting regimes in the 1980’s, when states moved away from world-wide combined reporting in response to threatened federal preemption. Currently 16 states exclude U.S. companies with predominately foreign property and payroll factors from their combined reports.

To read the article, click the "Read More" button below.

An Insider’s View of the MTC’s P.L. 86-272 Project

In the fall of 2018, the MTC’s Uniformity Committee tasked a work group consisting of representatives from a dozen states to update the “Statement Concerning Practices of the Multistate Tax Commission and Signatory States Under Public Law 86-272.” The Statement was last revised in 2001.

In this article, Brian Hamer, MTC counsel, describes the proposed revisions to the Statement and the path that the work group pursued to reach the decisions they made. He also responds to criticisms that have been raised to the proposed revisions and explains why those criticisms are not well founded.

The Commission will consider adopting the proposed revisions for recommendation to the states at its 2021 annual meeting in August. To read the article, click the ‘Read More’ button below.

Noell Industries, Inc. v. Idaho State Tax Commission

The Multistate Tax Commission has filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Idaho Supreme Court's decision in Noell Industries, Inc. v. Idaho State Tax Commission, 470 P.3d 1176 (Idaho 2020). In its decision, the Idaho Supreme Court held that Idaho could not tax a holding company on any portion of its gain from the sale of a multistate business that had operated in that state for almost two decades. In its amicus brief, the Commission pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court has never considered the application of the unitary business principle to a business enterprise that includes a holding company, resulting in a gap in Due Process Clause jurisprudence, and that the Idaho Supreme Court’s decision contributes to a growing conflict among state courts and administrative tribunals.

Mobile Workforce Proposals – A Comparison

In 2011, the MTC developed model legislation addressing the issue of workers temporarily in the state for short time-periods (“mobile workers”). This was a response to federal legislation that would have preempted state law and which contained provisions that would have created administrative problem for the states. Recently, the Council On State Taxation (COST), long a proponent of this federal legislation, put forward a draft state legislative proposal. COST’s proposal contains provisions similar to the federal proposal.

MTC Responds to OECD Public Consultation Document

The Multistate Tax Commission responded to the public consultation document that asks for comment on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2020), Tax Challenges Arising from Digitalisation – Report on Pillar One Blueprint: Item III - the nexus standard, and Item IV – the revenue sourcing rules. The MTC has extensive experience with both nexus and sourcing issues through our uniformity efforts and this submission — masterfully prepared by Uniformity Counsel Helen Hecht — provides the OECD a summary of that experience along with information on the approach that the MTC has recommended to its members.