About This Blog
Taxes in New York (TiNY) is a blog by the Hodgson Russ LLP State and Local Tax Practice Group members Chris Doyle, Peter Calleri, and Zoe Peppas. The weekly reports are intended to go out every Tuesday after the New York State Division of Tax Appeals (DTA) publishes new ALJ Determinations and Tribunal Decisions. In addition to the weekly reports, TiNY may provide analysis of and commentary on other developments in the world of New York tax law.
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Christopher L. Doyle
Showing 176 posts by Christopher L. Doyle.
TiNY Report for October 29, 2020 (reporting on DTA cases issued October 22)
There were no cases on which to report last week. This week, there are two measly ALJ Determinations, and both are timies. It’s a good thing the TiNY editorial staff isn’t paid by-the-word. One of the timies involves an electronically-provided notice. Electronic issuance of notices… maybe it’s my age showing, but I just don’t trust the process. So, while I was writing this, I toggled my browser over to the Department’s website, logged-on to my OLS (on-line service) account, and confirmed that I have not elected to accept electronic delivery of any notice. If you have an OLS account, I suggest you do the same.
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TiNY Report for October 15, 2020 (reporting on DTA cases issued September 24, October 1 and October 8)
We have some pent-up cases this week. I took a few weeks off from TiNY because: (a) the cases were not particularly noteworthy, and (b) if I had to write up one more timy I was going to start my Thursdays by opening the bourbon bottle before opening my web browser. So I took a little mental health break from TiNY, and am now anxious to report on the one Tribunal Order, five ALJ Determinations, and two ALJ Orders from the last three weeks.
TiNY Report for September 10, 2020 (reporting DTA cases issued September 3)
The DTA’s “month of misery” continues with five more determinations and an order dealing with (mostly) timeliness issues. I feel like Bill Murray three-quarter’s of the way through “Groundhog Day.” But instead of “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher, the radio is playing “Time after Time” by Cyndi Lauper, and the chorus lyrics have been bastardized into something like:
If you’re late and you file, you will get dismissed, timy after timy. Then TiNY will post a brief summary, timy after timy.
TiNY Report for August 27, 2020 (reporting on cases issued by the DTA on August 20)
From Chris: Our TiNY writing staff is still having problems getting our reports out. This is almost entirely the fault of the Senior Editor (a/k/a me). TiNY occupies a low spot on my priority totem these days. And last week, I was blind-sided by the DTA when it dumped nine(!) determinations onto the website rather late in the day on Thursday. Fortunately, two were sales tax cases that I could delegate to our TiNY sales tax correspondent, Joseph Endres. But that left seven determinations for me to summarize, and those seven weren’t compelling reads. So for a while, it was “Welcome to Back Burner, NY, Pop. 7.”
As a good will gesture (and to show we care) we’ll be refunding our 12 or so readers 5% of the TiNY subscription fee they pay!
TiNY Report for August 13, 2020 (reporting on DTA cases issued August 6)
This week’s offerings include two decisions from the Tax Appeals Tribunal. I’m a fan of the Tribunal, and I love to see it tackle difficult issues such as the ones presented this week. One deals with the mostly factual issue of whether a petitioner was a responsible person liable for a business’s withholding taxes. The other deals with the legal issue of whether a non-US affiliate of Disney would not, for New York franchise tax purposes, be required to add back to income royalty payments it made to an affiliate. Reasonable minds may differ, and (with due respect to the Tribunal) you will see below that I surmise that both cases could have been decided differently.
TiNY Report for August 6, 2020 (reporting on DTA cases issued July 30)
The phrase “Dog Days” does not refer to those summer days when it is so hot that your dog just wants to lie around and pant all day. Instead, the dog days are those days in the year during which Sirius—aka: the “dog star”—rises before the sun in the morning. This year the dog days fall between July 22 and August 22, inclusive. Even without the knowledge of the origin of the phrase, I might have guessed we were in the dog days this week because the DTA served us up a determination and an ALJ order on cases that are real dogs, appearing to involve ill-prepared petitioners arguing mostly baseless factual issues.
TiNY Report for July 23, 2020 (reporting on DTA cases issued July 16)
A decision and four determinations this week. The decision is a little interesting. The determinations each involve jurisdictional, procedural necessities that are routine.
TiNY Report for July 16, 2020 (reporting on DTA cases issued July 2 and July 9)
Mea culpa, baby! Yes, your senior editor, who was in charge last week, neglected to post a summary of the solitary timy ALJ Order that hit the DTA’s website last week. There were many, many priorities in front of TiNY last week. And many, many phone calls from CPAs wondering just how one is supposed to apply New York’s “de-coupling” from the CARES Act in practice. Not an excuse . . . an explanation. We stand behind the timeliness of our publication. So feel free to contact the senior editor (at tiny@hodgsonruss.com) to request a ratable refund of the subscription fee you pay. He has agreed to pay these out of his own pocket!
There are two decisions, four determinations, and last week’s order to report on this week. I was hoping to report that the Tribunal had continued down a path away from the “only reasonable construction standard,” but . . . no.
TiNY Report for June 25, 2020 (reporting on DTA cases issued June 18)
A light lift this week with two determinations and an ALJ order. There were no earthshaking rulings in the trio. However, there were a few interesting tidbits . . . and one run-of-the-mill timy.
TiNY Report for June 18, 2020 (reporting on DTA cases issued June 8)
Below are Emma’s reports on a Tribunal decision and a very rare Tribunal order. The last time we saw a Tribunal order was in 2018.
But before we get into all that, let me tell a true story about my trip back to the office on Friday. My visit to the office was necessary because I needed to get out a document with a “wet” signature. While I was there, I looked through the hard-copy mail that had been previously scanned and emailed to me. I do this from time to time to make sure that no time sensitive documents have missed my consideration. One of the documents was a Notice and Demand for $500,000 issued to one of our residency clients. It should not have been issued because the client (through Hodgson Russ) filed a timely request for conciliation conference. And once we drew the Department’s attention to the error, the Notice was promptly and courteously rescinded. The point of this story is not that a Notice had been issued in error, or that it had been rescinded, but that the Department sent an insert with the Notice requesting that my nonresident client sign up at http://donatelife.ny.gov/register to be a New York organ donor.
There’s nothing wrong with being an organ donor. I am registered with New York as an organ donor. And if you are reading this and live in New York, I encourage you to register as a donor too (just go to the link in the last paragraph). But it seems a little over the top for New York to ask a person who moved (or even just claimed to have moved) out of the State for a literal “pound of flesh” in addition to resident taxes and interest. It used to be that penalties were rare. Now penalties are the norm and the State wants your kidneys too!