TEI’s State and Local Tax Committee has developed an extensive set of policy statements reflecting TEI’s position on important administrative and procedural issues. These statements facilitate advocacy by providing formal position papers TEI’s members can use when communicating with taxing agencies.
The State and Local Tax Committee recently revised a longstanding policy statement on state tax return due dates. The policy statement supports amending state laws or procedures so state corporate tax filing deadlines are at least thirty days after the federal return due date on which the state return relies. The existing policy has allowed the State and Local Tax Committee to raise the issue with state tax administrators as part of an informal working group consisting of AICPA, COST, and others. Earlier this year, the efforts resulted in Illinois promulgating a regulation consistent with TEI’s thirty-day request.
The State and Local Tax Committee is also drafting two new policy statements that would enable the committee to engage in issues expected to be debated in different forums in the coming months. The first policy statement supports limited federal court jurisdictions for state tax cases that involve the US Constitution or federal law. Currently, taxpayers must litigate virtually every state tax case in state courts. A coalition has been formed by some taxpayers and trade associations to advocate for a change to federal law.
The second policy statement supports a uniform power of attorney (POA) taxpayers can rely upon in multiple states. Currently, taxpayers must file a state-specific POA whenever they want a state to communicate with their agents about specific filings, assessments, or other matters. The Multistate Tax Commission (MTC) has started a project to determine whether a uniform POA would be possible and to help ease administrative burdens. The policy statement would allow the State and Local Tax Committee and TEI staff to engage the MTC on the POA issue.
The State and Local Tax Committee’s chair is Natalie Friedman of Charter Communications. Todd Lard, TEI tax counsel, is supporting these initiatives from the TEI staff.
