State and local tax news — from state income tax quirks to property tax fights, because not all tax battles happen in Washington.
(Note: Updated April 1, 2020) On March 20, 2020, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin extended the tax filing and payment deadline to July 15, 2020. You can find more information and guidance here. Some tax-related agencies and departments are closed: The US Tax Court is closed to the public. You may still file petitions and use online services. Social Security offices…
$8.41. That was how much 83-year-old Uri Rafaeli, a retired engineer, in Michigan underpaid his property taxes by in 2014. That was all it took for him to lose his house. Rafaeli bought a 1,500-square-foot Southfield home in 2011. He paid $60,000 for the property, and the deed was recorded by the Oakland County Register…
Last year, Ohio made news as the first state in the nation to accept tax payments using cryptocurrency. Less than a year later, the program has been suspended after accusations that it wasn’t properly vetted. The program was initially hailed as a model for the rest of the country. Under the terms of the program,…
If you made a purchase on the internet yesterday, you might have noticed something different: sales tax. Changes in sales tax compliance laws for remote sellers and marketplace facilitators in more than a dozen states kicked in beginning October 1, 2019. More than 40 states have tweaked their sales tax laws since a 2018 Supreme Court…
It turns out that there is such a thing as too much SALT. U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken has dismissed a lawsuit filed by four states to strike down the cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). The lawsuit was filed in July of 2018…
Nobody likes getting a tax bill in the mail. It’s especially concerning when your tax bill is a bit higher than you anticipated. But what happens when it’s hundreds of millions of dollars more than you were expecting? Just ask Donna Smith from Aurora, Colorado. Smith, a part-time worker at a local thrift store, got…
As part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), Congress capped the amount of state and local taxes (SALT) that taxpayers can deduct on their federal returns. Taxpayers who were impacted complained that they were unfairly targeted, and some scrambled to find ways to protect the deduction (including filing lawsuits to protect workarounds). Now, those concerns…
Ready for back to school shopping? According to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, total spending for K-12 schools and college reached $82.8 billion in 2018, nearly as high as 2017’s $83.6 billion. With those expenses looming, parents are often looking for opportunities to save some cash. One of the ways…
If you’re planning a trip this holiday week, don’t forget to figure in the cost of gasoline. Drivers in some states will feel a pinch in their wallets as gas taxes increase beginning today. The largest jump will be felt in Illinois where the state gas tax will double to 38 cents per gallon (up from 19…
The Supreme Court issued a decision in North Carolina Department of Revenue v. The Kimberley Rice Kaestner 1992 Family Trust—and it’s unanimous. The Court ruled that a trust beneficiary’s residence is not sufficient on its own for a state to tax a trust’s undistributed income. Here’s how the case arose. Joseph Lee Rice, III, created a…