Bill Backstrom, head of the Tax Practice Group participated in a panel titled “Best Practices in Pursuing Refund Claims of Indirect Taxes” at the Council on State Taxation’s Annual Meeting held on October 22–25, 2019 in Washington, DC. The panel focused on best practices in pursuing indirect tax refund claims, highlighting the processes, procedures, policies, and tax positions related to refund claims and discussing how to use them to maximize your refund and streamline the process.
John Fletcher, partner in the Tax Practice Group in the Jackson, Mississippi office, participated in the panel “The Ownership Trap – What Is Direct and Indirect Ownership,” which focused on the concepts of ownership, possession and constructive receipt from both the income tax and sales tax perspectives. The panel discussed how, with respect to income tax, these concepts can impact the determination of: nexus, the composition of a unitary group, the amount and timing of dividends received; and, the computation of the apportionment formula. With respect to sales tax, the concepts can impact the determination of when a transaction is subject to sales tax, and what the concepts of “constructive receipt” or “constructive benefit” mean in the context of sales of services, especially electronically delivered services.