COST 54th Annual Meeting

Zack’s Panel: The Sales Taxation of Digital Products - Wednesday, October 18, 11:10AM - 12:10PM
The inclusion or expansion of the sales tax base to include cloud computing, digital information and data processing, video and audio streaming, and other digital products continues to provoke controversy across the state tax landscape. This session will provide an update on the latest state digital tax base expansion proposals, the MTC digital products project, and the most significant tax litigation relating to the digital economy. Panelists will also discuss the importance of sales tax exemptions for digital business inputs and the dismal record of the states to date in avoiding digital business inputs pyramiding.

Carley’s Panel: Foreign Factor Representation - Thursday, October 19, 8:10AM - 9AM
The states have a long history of taxing foreign dividends, and more recently, GILTI, without allowing full or even partial foreign-factor representation. This trend is getting worse, not better, as evidenced by Minnesota’s new approach to taxing about one-half of foreign source income with no foreign factor representation. This session will discuss the historic state limitations on foreign-factor representation, and past legal challenges to these practices. The panelists will also analyze the likely future legal challenges based on Commerce Clause discrimination and fair apportionment principles.

Evan's Panel: On What Basis? Identifying and Calculating Tax Base Differences Between Federal and State Asset Basis - Thursday, October 19th, 10:10 - 11AM