Agenda

Volatility on Wall Street, bankruptcies, and government bailouts—the steady drum beat of bad economic news continues. To address the economic crisis, Congress has enacted nearly a dozen tax bills since December 2007, with some offering hundreds of tax breaks to businesses and individuals. For tax practitioners, identifying the federal provisions that will help their clients can be challenging.

But understanding the tax consequences arising from these bills at the state level is even more complicated for tax practitioners and their clients.

While some states have adopted nearly all of the federal tax breaks, others have adopted none. Adding to the complexity is that states take different stances on key issues such as the:

• treatment of net operating losses,
• apportionment and sourcing of sales receipts, and
• liability of tax officers, shareholders, partners or members for the “trust fund” taxes of their corporation, partnership, or LLC.

In this webinar, recorded on April 30, 2009, the distinguished panel of speakers analyze some of the difficulties and opportunities that may arise from this disparate patchwork of tax policies. Attendees will learn how to better identify state provisions that will benefit their clients or those that could be punitive.

The panel discusses how the states are likely to respond to the down economy. For example, there has been a legislative push in several states to switch from separate to combined reporting. This may bring in more revenue for states, but it will add significant compliance burdens for practitioners and taxpayers alike.

Specifically, the panel will address the following topics:

• the recent move toward combined reporting,
• net operating losses,
• bonus depreciation,
• enhanced expensing,
• § 382 limitations,
• § 108 discharge from indebtedness,
• treatment of an S corporation’s built-in gains
• state conformity methods,
• apportionment and sourcing strategies,
• business entity planning/trust fund tax liabilities
• state tax credits and claw-back provisions, and
• non-income tax planning ideas (sales tax, property tax).

In addition, this event covers the results of BNA’s 2009 Survey of State Tax Departments. The survey clarifies each state’s position on income and sales tax nexus. It also asks the states to set forth their policies on issues such as NOLs and income resulting from the discharge of indebtedness from bankruptcy.

Upon completion of this program, participants will be able to:
• learn how the states are likely to respond to the down economy;
• understand the different ways in which the states conform to provisions of the federal Internal Revenue Code;
• identify key tax provisions on which the states tend to differ from one another;
• anticipate the complexities created by some of the recently adopted combined reporting regimes;
• know the latest trends regarding income and sales tax nexus.