October 19-21: First week of the House and Senate fall veto session.
October 26-28: Second week of the House and Senate fall veto session.
October 8, 2021
State and Local Tax
This Week
Illinois General Assembly
The House and Senate are not scheduled to return to Springfield until October 19 for the first week of the veto session.
Rulemaking
The October 8 edition of the Illinois Register did not contain any proposed or adopted rules of the Illinois Department of Revenue or the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
Court cases
No new tax-related cases this week.
Tax Tribunal
No new decisions have been posted by the Tribunal this week.
One of the new cases filed with the Tribunal this week is a protest filed by Wayfair. Wayfair v. Department of Revenue is a protest of a sales tax audit. The audit covered the period from February 19, 2016 through March 31, 2019.
The taxpayer is represented by Brann & Isaccson. They protested the assessment of Retailers' Occupation Tax against Wayfair. I'm a bit unclear from the protest and the limited portion of the Department's audit assessment exactly what is at issue here. In the protest, at paragraph 18, Wayfair objects to the portion of the assessment that related to online sales that occurred prior to February 19, 2016.
The notice of tax liability attached to the protest indicates that the audit period is February 19, 2016 through March 31, 2019. The audit summary analysis also attached to the protest references "sales receipts pre-nexus" which result in tax of $164,643.46 - the amount Wayfair is protesting.
Wayfair indicates in the protest that prior to February 19, 2016, they had no physical presence in Illinois. On that date, they opened a facility in Carol Stream, Illinois.
They protest the assessment of Retailers' Occupation Tax for that earlier period. However, the tax is imposed by the Department at 6.25% for all periods, so it appears that Use Tax is what is actually being assessed. (The ROT rate in Carol Stream is currently 8.00% and in 2016 would have been higher than 6.25% for all periobecause Carol Stream is subject to the RTA tax.)
Without a review of all of the workpapers, my guess is that there may be another NTL for the earlier period and the NTL is for Use Tax as is the NTL attached to the protest.
In any event, I'll continue to watch this case as it progresses.
Publications
The Illinois General Assembly's bipartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability has issued its Monthly Briefing for the Month Ended: September 2021.
