rs-multi-state-tax-compliance-representation
Prohibited Collection Activities for State Collection Agents
So, briefly I’d like to talk a little bit about what procedures are in bound and out bounds for state collection agents. For the most part, state collection agents are expected to be courteous, they are expected to expeditiously move their cases through the state collections procedures and they are expected to try and work with the tax payer to facilitate a resolution. In practice, some agents are more difficult to deal with than others. It is often times a lot harder to work with an agent who is on a state level because a lot of times there’s not that face to face contact that you have with the IRS or you get a state collection agent who is under external pressures to collect revenue or to enforce the collection action much more severely, that coupled with the fact again, there are very few tax payer rights, makes things a little bit more difficult to do it.
Key Takeaways
- So, briefly I’d like to talk a little bit about what procedures are in bound and out bounds for state collection agents.
- However, there is a general standard for house state collection agents are supposed to behave. There is a published list of prohibited collection activities. All state collection agents are required to comply with the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
How the State of California Locates Taxpayers and Their Assets
Key Takeaways
- The next thing I would like to talk to you about is how the State of California locates taxpayers and their assets.
- State collection agents have gotten a lot more creative and have access to a lot more information than they did in the past.
- So first, the principal collection tool that the state uses for collections is the internet.
The next thing I would like to talk to you about is how the State of California locates taxpayers and their assets. State collection agents have gotten a lot more creative and have access to a lot more information than they did in the past. Part of the reason they have access to this information is because most of the records now within the state are electronic and there is a lot more information sharing between agencies, both within the State of California government and outside of the State of California. So first, the principal collection tool that the state uses for collections is the internet. So, the very first thing they do is usually run a Google search on you or your business, to try and locate the – they try and locate any information that they can on you. Interesting to note that state collection agents use a lot of social media. So, Facebook is common. Twitter is common. Yelp is common for businesses and some states can pull a variety of information that is publicly available on the internet and use that for collections purposes, which is really interesting. The next source of information that the state usually goes to is the internal databases that both the collection agency itself and the broader State of California main tax. So, for example, you’ve got a Franchise Tax Board state income tax person collecting on a delinquent liability. They can go to the Employment Development Department in California to get a copy of taxpayer’s wages and work information. They can go to the California DMV to get a copy of their driver’s license and last known address. They can look through the California voter registration system. All of this information is really easily available and really easily accessible to state collection agents. The other information they can pull is they can pull information from credit reporting agencies. So, a lot of the times, what state collection agents will do to locate assets in particular is they will pull your most recent credit report. So, if you’ve applied for a credit card recently or listed an address or things like that, the state agent can pull all of that off the credit card information. When state records fail or when the credit report doesn’t reveal anything, a lot of the times, the state collection agent will do a records request through the Internal Revenue Service. So, anything that is reported to the Internal Revenue Service is fair game for state collection agents. This includes wage information. This includes information from 1099s or state tax refunds in other states. It includes interest associated with bank accounts. So, banks will file third party 1099-INTs for interest that is earned; 1098s for student loan information and a variety of – the treasure trove of information that the IRS collects on taxpayers. The state through interagency records requests can get a hold of that information and often uses it to locate taxpayers and their assets. In addition to the IRS and gaining information through them, the state also uses the federal postal system as a means of getting updated addresses and things like that. So, a lot of the times, state collection agents can request to do a mail cover, which is where they – the post office keeps track of any letters that you have mailed with any forwarding address on. The state can obtain updated address information through the post office as a means of tracking you down. In addition, the state has something – has access to something called the Financial Institution Records Match Program. So, the state can send out a request with your first name and your last name or your business name or the last four or your Social Security number and try and run that through a database of banks in order to track down any financial institution accounts that you might have. So, they do that, number one, to locate assets; and number two, to locate you physically and track you down. So, all these sources of information are readily available to state collection agents and it’s one of the ways they help try and close the tax gap. They do pretty thorough asset investigations on most taxpayers and that’s why a lot of the times down the road, even if the taxpayer has moved out of state or hasn’t had any work history or anything like that, that’s how the state is able to locate them and track down their assets for collections purposes. Up next
How the State of California Locates Out of State Taxpayers and Their Assets
In addition to in-state collections actions, I want to talk to you briefly about out-of-state collections actions. So, California specifically is prohibited by and large from seizing assets in another state. There are jurisdictional restrictions from California going into a neighboring state and seizing an asset in that state. It violates federal law and it runs counter to the constitution. However, what the loophole that California uses to get around this is they target financial institutions and any other third parties that may have a foothold in California. So, for example, if I am a Texas resident and I have a Bank of America account in Texas with $50,000 in it, and I owe $50,000 to the State of California, in California, through Bank of America’s contact with California, can request that that money be levied. Any financial institution, any insurance company or retirement account or anything like that or employer that has a foothold within California can be subject to levy.
Key Takeaways
- In addition to in-state collections actions, I want to talk to you briefly about out-of-state collections actions. So, California specifically is prohibited by and large from seizing assets in another state.
- So, if the employer or the financial institution has any nexus with California, then California will try and track down that asset.
The Good and Bad News for Amazon Sellers
Key Takeaways
- Topic: The Good and Bad News for Amazon Sellers
- Read the full article below for complete details on this topic.
Hi I’m Sam Brotman here with Brotman law in San Diego and this blog post is the good and bad news for Amazon salaries so it’s been any of you got the email and our where California has issued a formal legal demand Amazon and tomorrow Amazon will be turning over its seller information to the state of California so that California can go back and potentially go after people who have not been collecting and remitting sales tax in California so since this email came out last week we’ve spoken with a number of Amazon sellers and I’ve done a number of consulates with people kind of giving them you know the advice that we would give them at a consult based on their particular situation and a lot of the things that come out of those consults are some misconceptions and some misinformation surrounding this process so I wouldn’t take the opportunity to get on with you today and to address a lot of these things because I think they’re important and.
Common Misconceptions Among Amazon Sellers
Key Takeaways
- Topic: Common Misconceptions Among Amazon Sellers
- Read the full article below for complete details on this topic.
Good Morning of my name is Sam Brockman I am a sales and use tax attorney with Brotman law here in San Diego and I wanted to do a short video this morning to clear up a lot of common misconceptions among Amazon sellers so I’ve been talking with a lot of people who received notices from California and December and they’re the January 15th deadline to become registered has now passed and in a lot of the conversations with Amazon sellers that I’m having there are some common misconceptions in those conversations as well as some things that I’ve seen that are posted online that are not exactly true or that are misleading, so I wanted to post a quick video to get the right information out there and in helping you guys to make some informed decisions with respect to this so first of all I would just want to give you an idea of where we’re coming from as a law firm with respect to this issue so even though this is a legal issue what is of most importance to most people is the business ramifications of this decision so and really our job as a law firm is to help our clients identify manage and mitigate risk so to the extent that we can’t mitigate a risk we need to manage it in.
The Truth About CA AB 147 and the Impact on Amazon Sellers
Good Morning this is attorney Sam Brockman with Brotman law here at San Diego and the title of this video blog post is California a B 147 and its impact on Amazon sellers so I’ve been getting a lot of questions over the last two weeks about the proposed legislation in California which is California a B 147 and what it means for Amazon sellers and there has been a great amount of confusion with our current clients with some of the prospective clients that called us and then generally in the community about what the bill is and what it means so I finally had an opportunity to sell out last night and read through the whole bill and so I wanted to share some of my thoughts on what the bill proposes to do what it does not do and then the ultimate impact on the Amazon community as a whole so California a B 147 is a direct response by California to the Wayfarer decision and what that means is the very first thing that a B 147 does is it expands.
Key Takeaways
- Topic: The Truth About CA AB 147 and the Impact on Amazon Sellers
- Read the full article below for complete details on this topic.
How Does California Locate Taxpayers and Their Assets?
So this is actually a very interesting subject and something that we as tax practitioners talk about quite frequently. So the first way that California tracks you is through any filings that you do with the state. So for example, everybody in California files a tax return with the Franchise Tax Board and you have an address on them. So they use the address based on your FTB returns and the addresses that are submitted to third parties like banks and credit institutions and things like that to track your current information. Number two is they pull your credit report. So the same credit report that you can pull through Experian or TransUnion the state of California has access to and they can use it to locate taxpayers and their assets. Number three is California gets data from the IRS. So the IRS has a much more expanded database of taxpayer information and particularly for taxpayers that have moved out of California or might be in other places. The federal government is often a much more reliable and more accurate source of information.
Key Takeaways
- So this is actually a very interesting subject and something that we as tax practitioners talk about quite frequently. So the first way that California tracks you is through any filings that you do with the state.
- The next thing they do if they’re serious is they use a program called accurate and accurate is a massive public records database. So as you think about it, you and I go through our daily life.
Tax Issues for Multi-State Businesses
Key Takeaways
- Hi I’m Sam Brockman I am the founder and principal attorney at Brotman law here in San Diego.
- Today We’re going to be covering tax issues for multi-state businesses.
- So California has increased its base of operations and actually has offices in.
Hi I’m Sam Brockman I am the founder and principal attorney at Brotman law here in San Diego. Today We’re going to be covering tax issues for multi-state businesses. I want to give you a little bit of a background on my background in order to better do some context to this presentation, so I am a tax controversy attorney here in San Diego which in plain English means I represent businesses and audits payroll tax sales tax and income tax and I help those who owe more money to the government than they can pay, so our firm does a variety of services but mostly we focus in on examinations and we focus in on collections work and in helping companies with compliance issues, so that they avoid those two issues increasingly a larger percentage of our business is with multi-state companies who are trying to stay out of trouble traditionally. We see a very large influx of businesses outside of California who tend to step into California tax issues, so I’m going to speak mostly from my cuts in the context of dealing with California tax issues but this applies to a variety of states California is one of the more aggressive states in pursuing businesses that are located outside of its borders for tax revenue California kind of smartened up to the fact that it can go after businesses and individuals that may have contact with the state of California, but who actually don’t reside in California and do don’t have voting power in California. So California has increased its base of operations and actually has offices in.
Why Are Multi State Tax Issues a Problem for Companies?
Key Takeaways
- So imagine that you’re a company and you’re based in Texas and you go to work every day in Texas.
- Your employees are in Texas, sure you sell products outside of Texas but a lot of companies sell products outside of Texas, and over time as your business grows and scales you begin to have more an…
- Maybe you have clients in Oklahoma or California or Florida.
So imagine that you’re a company and you’re based in Texas and you go to work every day in Texas. Your employees are in Texas, sure you sell products outside of Texas but a lot of companies sell products outside of Texas, and over time as your business grows and scales you begin to have more and more contacts with other states. Maybe you have clients in Oklahoma or California or Florida. Maybe you sell something that requires installation and so you have to send either employees or independent contractors to various states to help install products. Maybe you offer complimentary services. You sell software, you need somebody to help train your clients or to teach them things. Maybe you send salespeople to two different locations. Maybe you have an employee and she’s been with you for ten years and she gets a job offer and she wants to move to San Diego. The problem that we see with a lot of businesses in this digital age and in the age of routine domestic airline flights and the ease of travel is companies start to develop more and more of an interstate web and for a company that’s been based in Texas, that has ownership that’s been based in Texas their entire lives,