The Third Court of Appeals issued its opinion today in Combs v. Newpark Resources, Inc., its first case under the revised Texas franchise tax law (also known as the Texas margin tax). The opinion rejects the Texas Comptroller’s narrow interpretation of the Texas franchise tax’s cost of goods sold deduction in favor of the taxpayer’s […]
A new Texas Comptroller hearing decision spotlights the importance of terminating business entities after they conclude their business. Doing so helps limit the entity’s exposure to potential tax assessments. This is because it, in many cases, may effective reduce the amount of time the Comptroller has to make an assessment against the entity. I’ll discuss […]
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in U.S. v. Windsor raises many questions for the world of tax. The decision invalidated the portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that defines “marriage” only as a union between a man and a woman for federal purposes. However, the decision did not invalidate the portion of […]
Yesterday, the Texas franchise tax and the Texas sales and use tax became a bit more complicated. Governor Rick Perry just signed into law all significant Texas franchise tax and Texas sales tax bills the Legislature passed in 2013. Each bill adds a few more twists to an already-tangled Texas tax code. Amanda summarized the […]
This post takes a quick look at the decisions regarding Texas sales and use tax and Texas franchise tax that the Texas Supreme Court and Texas Courts of Appeals have handed down in the past year. While this blog has already discussed some of these, now is a good time to revisit them in light […]
The Texas Comptroller just adopted a major revision to the Texas franchise tax cost of goods sold rule. The final rule the Texas Comptroller adopted is basically the same as the proposed cost of goods sold rule Michael described in his earlier post. I’ll describe the ways the Texas Comptroller’s final cost of goods sold […]
The 83rd Regular Legislative session is at an end, and the Legislature passed many changes to the Texas franchise tax in the session’s final hours. The bill that included most of these changes was HB 500. I previously covered the House version of this bill, as well as the very different Senate version. The Legislature worked out […]
The Texas Senate just passed its plan for fixing the Texas Franchise Tax. It’s quite different from the Texas Franchise Tax reform bill the House passed two weeks ago, which I detailed in an earlier post. Of course, this means that the House and Senate must reconcile the differences over the weekend if the Legislature […]
Last week, the House passed HB 500, a major revision to the Texas franchise tax. This is the first indication of what changes may be in store for the Texas franchise tax, or margin tax, in 2013. Below is a fairly complete list of all of the changes that HB 500 includes. Of course, the […]
Last Friday, the Texas Comptroller posted to the Texas Register a proposed revision to her Rule 3.588, which explains how to calculate COGS (cost of goods sold) for Texas franchise tax purposes. The Comptroller appears ready to significantly expand which costs are included in the cost of goods sold deduction.
