Blog

Arizona has released its 2017 Quarterly Withholding Tax Return, the A1-QRT. This form is the quarterly reconciliation and reporting form used for withholding payments made over the course of a quarter. The form has undergone extensive formatting changes, but relatively few material changes. The form now requests more detail related to business closures and successive […]

Maine recently published updated instructions for Form 941-ME, the “Employer’s Return of Maine Income Tax Withholding.” Generally, Form 941-ME is used to report employee or payee income tax withholding to the Maine Revenue Service. The 2017 version of these instructions include a few changes, mostly related to amended returns. • Amended Returns: This section was […]

North Dakota recently released an updated version of Publication 28262 – “Guideline to Income Tax Withholding: Oil and gas Royalty Payments.” The Guideline provides withholding criteria regarding oil and gas related royalty payments. There is one change from the previous version of this publication involving remittance of 1099-MISC forms under the Combined Federal/State Program administered […]

On April 3 the Massachusetts DOR issued Directive 17-1 establishing an economic nexus standard for out-of-state vendors. Under this new rule, starting on July 1, the existing “physical presence” standard as defined by the famous Quill v. North Dakota Supreme Court decision would be replaced with a requirement that specifies all vendors that make at […]

The Paraguay Tax Administration (SET) recently informed the business community that it is initiating a project to introduce the mandatory use of electronic invoices. The project will be executed in three phases: 1) Definition of the e-Invoice model; 2) Development of the necessary regulations and the technical platform and 3) Implementation of a pilot plan […]

This summary of our Sovos Tax Tuesday webinar addresses the challenges that IT managers face, and solutions to managing sales and use tax compliance. On March 28, I was joined by Chuck Maniace and Mark Christenson to present a webinar on challenges to IT managers in supporting sales and use tax compliance.  We took a […]

Regulatory and legislative updates to 1099 form requirements that took place in recent weeks. Individual states and the IRS introduce new 1099 form requirements and changes to existing legislation on a frequent basis. Sovos documents each of these updates in its Taxport Compass portal to arm clients with the most current and accurate information and […]

The Economic and Financial Affairs Council of the European Union (ECOFIN) recently discussed two hot-button topics that could ultimately lead to changes in European VAT law. First, ECOFIN discussed whether Member States should be allowed to reduce-rate electronic publications. This option already exists for ‘physical’ books, newspapers, magazines, and the like, but EU authorities have […]

Utah has recently enacted legislation which will increase the Prepaid Wireless 911 Service Charge from 1.90% to 2.45% effective July 1, 2017. The legislation also further increases the Prepaid Wireless 911 Service Charge to 3.30% on January 1, 2018. Sellers are required to collect the Prepaid Wireless 911 Service Charge on all sales of prepaid […]

The Australian Taxation Office has made some revisions to the ATO FATCA and CRS websites. Additionally, the ATO has created a new FATCA Reporting page that provides essential information regarding the transmittal of FATCA returns. The reporting page confirms that Australia will continue to use the IRS XML Schema, and permit but not require Nil […]

The OECD has recently put out a new edition of the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information. This text is sometimes referred to as the “purple book.” The OECD explains that the update was made to give more clarity to the process of submitting corrected returns. In that vein, the OECD updated the […]

Luxembourg has published their list of Reportable Jurisdictions in the Journal Officiel. The list is a requirement from the Common Reporting Standard, and should be use by Reporting Financial Institutions if they have Reportable Accounts. It’s Luxembourg’s first publication of such a list. Otherwise, an FI may submit a Nil but it is not required […]

Sweden has released a new version of the SKV 260 which provides a technical description of the XML file for FATCA should be formatted. The new guide applies to reports made for this year’s reporting. The format largely follows the IRS’s XML v.2.0 as outlined in the Publication 5124. However, Sweden has mandated that certain […]

The BVI International Tax Authority has relaxed the statutory deadlines for both UK CDOT and CRS – extending them to June 30, 2017 for enrollment and to July 31, 2017 for submissions. The ITA will inform BVI FIs directly once the portal is open to accept UK and CRS enrollments and filings. In addition, UK […]

Sovos recently partnered with Aberdeen Group to survey 179 compliance decision makers across a number of industries to find out how they have handled Affordable Care Act (ACA) reporting. This is the third in a series of four blogs that detail some of the survey’s more notable results and findings. This installment will address how […]

The Arizona Governor signed into law House Bill 2280 which ultimately requires electronic filing and payment of most business taxes. The Arizona Department of Revenue favors e-filing as simpler, more secure and faster than traditional paper returns. While many taxpayers already file Arizona’s Transaction Privilege Tax (TPT) return electronically, the requirement to e-file for TPT […]

During the past couple of months a number of significant changes have seemingly unnoticed entered into force in Estonia. Interestingly enough, Estonia seems to be the first EU Member State to by law require XML format for the exchange of B2B e-invoices, or rather require taxpayers to issue e-invoices using “machine-processable formats”. Only taxpayers who […]

Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia and the VAT Gap On February 22, 2017 the European Commission published its annual reports on the economic and social situation in Member States, the European Semester Winter Package. The country reports for Bulgaria, Lithuania and Latvia all took note of VAT gaps well over the European average. The reports also noted […]