On March 28, 2013, Overstock and Amazon lost their challenge of a state tax on online sales in New York’s highest court. Further, the the Supreme Court of United States declined hearing the case, because the court determined that such a law did not violate the federal Commerce Clause. Following…
The Constitution gives the power to Congress, and Congress alone, to regulate commerce with foreign nations. This means the individual states cannot regulate commerce with foreign nations. This concept is known as the Foreign Commerce Clause. While it seldom comes up in the area of state taxation, the Foreign Commerce…
As many of my readers know, I have been a regular author for the FPMA over the past year. I have spent the better part of that period discussing the onslaught of convenience stores by the Florida Department of Revenue. While our firm has been successful in reducing many assessments…
In 2012, Scioto Insurance Company v. Oklahoma Tax Comm’n, 279 P. 3d 782 (Ok 2012), the Supreme Court of Oklahoma was the most recent high court to tackle the question of foreign intellectual property holding companies. Similar to the line of cases addressed above, Scioto is a Vermont holding company…
In 2012, West Virginia (home of MBNA) went after ConAgra Foods, Inc. ConAgra is a trademark holding company and wholly owned by a Nebraska subsidiary of CA foods. ConAgra held valuable trademarks and trade names from affiliated and unrelated entities such as Armour, Butterball, Healthy Choice, Kid Cuisine, Morton, and…