The State and Local Tax Buzz

It's Cyber Monday!!  The online equivalent to Black Friday and a day that's anticipated to be the busiest online shopping day of 2012.  And while many of you have been perusing the Internet for Cyber Monday “deals”, I’ve been checking the Internet for the media’s coverage of "Cyber Monday and taxes".  
Why? Well, if you’re a frequent visitor to The State and Local Tax “Buzz” or follow my contributions to the SalesTaxSupport.comblog, you're well aware that I follow (closely follow) and report on (and speak on and tweet about) “Internet Sales Taxes”. 
And, just as I did last year, I knew I’d be writing a "Cyber Monday – Taxes" post and wanted to see what message the media was sending this year. Would the media (once again) be sending the message that Cyber Monday shopping is “tax-free”? 
Although a few of this year’s articles have correctly reported the tax reality about online shopping (more on that in a bit), there certainly been no shortage of articl…

The following is a guest post by Diane Yetter, founder of theSales Tax Institute. I am excited to publishing Diane’s second guest post here at The State and Local Tax “Buzz”.  In today’s post, Diane offers her insights on why thorough sales tax research is important, as well as some helpful tips on how to successfully conduct a sales and use tax research project.  You can read more about Diane and the Sales Tax Institute at the end of the post.

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Sales & use tax research can be a daunting project, whether you’re determining your sales tax nexus in one state or 50.  But it can be done – and actually, it MUST be done to be sure your company is in compliance. Here’s how you can get accurate results in an efficient timeframe (notice I didn’t promise it would be a quick process).
Make sure you can identify all of the specific taxability scenarios to be evaluated. If a large number of cases are being evaluated, you may want to organize them into groups that have the same fac…

Administrative Guidance:  On November 8th, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue (the “Department”) issued Technical Information Release (“TIR”) 12-9, in which it announced that the Department will grant an automatic extension of time until February 1, 2013 for certain tax filings and payments that would have been required to be filed and/or paid by non-resident individual and business taxpayers affected by Hurricane Sandy. This extension applies to filings and/or payments due between October 29, 2012 and January 31, 2013 (other than those excluded in the TIR as discussed below).

Specifically, the Department is granting this extension to taxpayers described in Internal Revenue Service Press Release, IR-2012-83, issued on November 2nd (and updated on November 9th, 13th, and 15th) as being in FEMA-designated jurisdictions impacted by Hurricane Sandy, including taxpayers in certain counties and municipalities in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island. (See IRS IR-2012-83 f…