A real estate company was assessed over $1 million in Washington B&O taxes related to inter-company accounting entries it made to attribute its management costs to the proper legal entity. The accounting entries were made for management reporting purposes and there was no intent by the subsidiaries to ever pay the amounts. We appealed the assessment. We provided the State documentation and negotiated a compromise regarding the taxation of mere score-keeping journal entries that resulted in a 70% reduction in the assessment.

A financial business was audited by the Washington Department of Revenue and issued a use tax assessment of over $1 million. During the audit, we identified a much larger sales tax refund citing case law in other states that addressed the same issue. The Audit Division disagreed and we appealed. During the appeal, we reached an offer of compromise eliminating the entire assessment.

A manufacturer of food products in Washington determined that a portion of its business was subject to the B&O tax classification for meat processors which is a lower tax rate than for general manufacturers. The Audit Division denied a portion of the refund because it did not believe some of the ingredients used in the processing, such as beef broth, were considered meat products. In our appeal, we explained how beef broth was made, and citing statute and case law we showed that beef broth was considered a meat product. The Appeals Division reversed Audit's position and granted a $600,000 refund.

A financial institution was audited and issued an assessment. We reviewed the assessment and identified $1.3 million of refunds, some of which were entirely unrelated to the assessment. The Audit Division agreed and issued the refund.

An e-commence company had paid sales tax charged by one of its vendors for IT services it provided. Despite the vendor's position that its services were taxable, upon a detailed review of the facts and law we determined that sales tax was improperly charged and requested a refund. The Department of Revenue agreed and our client received $175,000 in sales tax refunds. An additional $300,000 in refunds was filed on behalf of other clients who used this vendor.

A publishing company was reporting its B&O tax based on audit instructions it had received. The company merged with another company, but continued to report its income based on the audit instructions. During this time, the apportionment rules changed, but the taxpayer did not adjust its reporting to reflect this change. We reviewed their excise tax returns and re-computed the taxes based on the changes in law and the new facts. We identified and obtained a refund of over $1.4 million.

A Canadian manufacturer had identified a potential tax liability related to the sale of its products from its Canadian plants to Washington customers. The risk totaled about $600,000. The issue was whether it could deduct the Washington sales under the foreign commerce deduction. We prepared a letter ruling seeking confirmation that the deduction applied and The Department of Revenue issued a ruling confirming that the deduction applied allowing our client to remove the liability from its financial statements.

A vendor of a Washington e-commerce company was erroneously charging Washington sales tax to our client and would not stop charging sales tax on the services they provided to our client. We pursued a letter ruling from the Department of Revenue requesting they provide guidance. We provided a narrative explanation of the services, copies of the contracts, invoices and website address of the vendor. The Department of Revenue agreed the services were not taxable and we subsequently requested a refund from the vendor totaling over $200,000.

An e-commerce client wanted to consolidate its multi-state operations in order to increase efficiencies. During this period, the tax laws changed adversely impacting its existing tax obligations. We modeled the total state and local tax impact and costs of a merger and made recommendations on how best to proceed to minimize the overall tax cost.

A software company was faced with a requirement to collect sales tax due to expanding nexus. Our client engaged us to review 25 states and determine the taxability of every product and service they sell to customers as part of a larger sales tax system integration project. As part of the project, we reviewed over 10,000 SKUs and provided our client a list of taxable products and narrative write-up explaining our conclusions.

A retail company engaged us to review their sales and marketing activities and make determinations regarding whether any of those activities, if performed outside of Washington, would require a tax filing (i.e., "nexus") in other jurisdictions. We provided our client a matrix showing the 12 states where we thought they had both physical and economic nexus and the technical basis for the decision based on our research. We also drafted a memorandum explaining the law in detail providing detailed support for the conclusions.

Filing sales, excise, and property tax returns are a deadline driven, time consuming head ache. With thousands of jurisdictions to consider, mistakes are common and costly. KOM Consulting can provide end-to-end compliance services to provide you peace of mind. We are experienced in helping clients perform:

Nexus & taxability decisions
Data review and formatting
Tax accruals and contingent liability analysis
Return preparation
Payment requests & processing
Tax account reconciliation
Addressing tax notices
Tax calendar management
Exemption certification management

A dairy products company discovered that a certain tax incentive would not apply to a proposed joint venture it was entering into that would have brought a number of jobs to Washington State. We drafted a change to the statute and coordinated with company's government affairs personnel and external lobbyists to present our proposal to the Legislature. The Legislature agreed to modify the tax law paving the way to job creation in Washington.

The Washington Legislature was evaluating a proposal to eliminate a tax incentive that applied to the banking industry. We worked with the industry's association to evaluate the proposed changes, meet with the Legislature, and the Department of Revenue to craft statutory language that limited the impact only to a certain segment of the industry rather than a wholesale elimination of the incentive preserving millions in tax savings.

A computer reseller miscoded certain resale sales as wholesale sales in its general ledger. Upon reconciling their sales tax account we identified that it had collected but not remitted over $3 million in Washington sales tax. Collecting but not remitting sales tax can result in significant penalties up to 55% and potential criminal charges can apply. Then, the company got a notice of audit. Prior to the audit beginning, we met with the Audit Division and negotiated a voluntary tax payment and a 120 day period in which to make the payment. Based on this good faith effort, the Audit Division agreed not to assess any penalties saving over $1.6 million.

A technology company provider in advertently triggered nexus in Texas and did not remit and file any taxes over the past 8 years. If discovered, the company would have had exposure of over $5 million in taxes, penalties, and interest. We suggested a voluntary disclosure to remit the taxes due. Taxpayers that voluntarily agree to comply in Texas can limit the number of audit periods to four years and no interest or penalties are due. The voluntary disclosure reduced the tax exposure by over $1.5 million.