We are taking a break from our multi-post coverage of Opportunity Zones to address a recent, significant piece of Oregon tax legislation.
On May 16, 2019, Governor Kate Brown signed into law legislation imposing a new “corporate activity tax” (“CAT”) on certain Oregon businesses. The new law expressly provides that the tax revenue generated from the legislation will be used to fund public school education.
Although the new tax is called a “corporate” activity tax, it is imposed on individuals, corporations, and numerous other business entities. The CAT applies for tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2020.
To help defray the expected increased costs of goods and services purchased from taxpayers subject to the CAT that will assuredly be passed along to consumers, the Oregon Legislative Assembly modestly reduced personal income tax rates at the lower income brackets.
On June 21, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed half a century of legal precedent in a landmark 5-4 decision, South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. Under prior law, a state was forbidden from collecting sales tax against out-of-state sellers unless the sellers had physical presence within the state (such as a business location, employees, or property).
The physical presence standard arose from a decision in a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case, National Bellas Hess v. Department of Revenue of Illinois. In that case, the Court held that a mail-order company, whose only connection with customers in Illinois was by common carrier or U.S. mail, did not have sufficient connection with the state to warrant allowing it to tax the company. In 1992, the Court affirmed that holding in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota. The physical presence standard established by the Court in Bellas Hess and Quill has been a bright-line rule that presided over the rise of Internet commerce. That rule has now changed!
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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.
