On January 6, I presented a new White Paper, The Oregon Corporate Activity Tax – You Can Run and You Can Hide, but This New Tax Is Effective January 1, 2020, at the Oregon Society of Certified Public Accountants Annual State and Local Tax Conference. We had a large number of attendees, including representatives of the Oregon Department of Revenue (the “DOR”). Based upon the numerous questions I received (during and after the presentation), it is clear that tax practitioners are busy thinking about this new tax regime and how it applies to their clients. Unfortunately, in this particular case, I do not believe the curiosity will kill the CAT. It looks like it is here to stay.
In recent months, we have written extensively about Oregon’s new Corporate Activity Tax (the “CAT”). As discussed in our last post, the Oregon Department of Revenue (the “Department”) recently announced that it would hold a dial-in meeting to solicit input regarding the Department’s rulemaking process from stakeholders located out of state or who otherwise could not attend the town hall meetings. Peter Evalds attended the telephone meeting, which was held on Friday, October 25, 2019.
This post continues our coverage of the CAT with an overview of new information we learned during the call. This post also addresses questions and answers that the Department recently uploaded to the Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs”) section of its CAT website.
We have been covering Oregon’s new Corporate Activity Tax (the “CAT”) over the past few months. As previously discussed, the Oregon Department of Revenue (the “Department”) has been conducting town hall meetings with stakeholders across Oregon. The last meeting was held in Salem on October 4, 2019.
In this post, we continue our coverage of the CAT with a discussion of the Department’s town hall meeting that Peter Evalds attended in Portland, Oregon on October 3, 2019. We address significant issues discussed at the Portland meeting that were not discussed at the Beaverton meeting we covered a few weeks ago.
Larry J. Brant
Editor
Larry J. Brant is a Shareholder and the Chair of the Tax & Benefits practice group at Foster Garvey, a law firm based out of the Pacific Northwest, with offices in Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Washington, D.C.; New York, New York, Spokane, Washington; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Beijing, China. Mr. Brant is licensed to practice in Oregon and Washington. His practice focuses on tax, tax controversy and transactions. Mr. Brant is a past Chair of the Oregon State Bar Taxation Section. He was the long-term Chair of the Oregon Tax Institute, and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Portland Tax Forum. Mr. Brant has served as an adjunct professor, teaching corporate taxation, at Northwestern School of Law, Lewis and Clark College. He is an Expert Contributor to Thomson Reuters Checkpoint Catalyst. Mr. Brant is a Fellow in the American College of Tax Counsel. He publishes articles on numerous income tax issues, including Taxation of S Corporations, Reasonable Compensation, Circular 230, Worker Classification, IRC § 1031 Exchanges, Choice of Entity, Entity Tax Classification, and State and Local Taxation. Mr. Brant is a frequent lecturer at local, regional and national tax and business conferences for CPAs and attorneys. He was the 2015 Recipient of the Oregon State Bar Tax Section Award of Merit.