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September 4, 2020
State and Local Tax
This Week
Illinois General Assembly
The General Assembly is adjourned until the fall veto session.
Illinois Department of Revenue
The Department has established a Resource Page for the "Leveling the Playing Field for Illinois Retail Act".. The page is currently under development. The Department has updated the page this week with the addition of a publication dealing with Illinois filing, payment, and registration resources for marketplace facilitators and remote retailers. The Department also included a link to information on certified service providers/certified automated systems information.
Cook County Assessor
The Assessor has reopened its downtown Chicago office.
The Assessor announced this week that homeowners in Cook County have until September 11 to apply for missing property tax exemptions on their 2019 second-installment property tax bills.
Internal Revenue Service
IRS issued Revenue Ruling 2020-18 announcing that overpayment and underpayment interest rates remain the same for the fourth quarter.
IRS issued Notice 2020-65 that provides guidance with respect to the President's recent Executive order deferring withholding, deposit, and payment of certain payroll tax obligations. The President's action is a deferral beginning on September 1, with the deferred payments due beginning on January 1, 2021. The deferral by employers is voluntary. Illinois Chamber Tax Institute member accounting firm Sikich issued an explanation of the deferral.
Rulemaking
The September 4 edition of the Illinois Register did not contain any proposed or adopted rulemakings by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity or the Illinois Department of Revenue.
Court cases
No new tax-related cases this week.
Tax Tribunal
No new decisions were issued by the Tribunal this week.
One new case may be of interest. Boca Burros Corp v. Department of Revenue is a protest of an income tax notice of deficiency. The restaurant was audited and a sales tax assessment, penalties and interest, including fraud penalties was proposed. The taxpayer paid the proposed tax due during the latest amnesty period to avoid penalties and interest. As a result of participating in the amnesty, the taxpayer did not challenge the Department's assessment of sales taxes by questioning the Department's audit methodology.
Subsequently, the Department issued an income tax assessment based on the increase in sales tax receipts agreed to by the taxpayer during the amnesty.
The taxpayer protested the income tax assessment, and is attempting to argue, among other things, that it is improper for the Department to use the markup analysis that it utilized in the sales tax case to determine an increased income tax liability.
This case is a cautionary tale about understanding the implications of settling a sales tax case in amnesty.
Publications
The Illinois General Assembly's bi-partisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability issued its Monthly Briefing for the Month Ended: August 2020.
The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity issued a Report to the Restore Illinois Collaborative Commission on September 1. Included in the report is an update on new or existing program initiatives in support of businesses.
Illinois Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting
Please see the attached flier for our annual meeting on September 24. We are doing a virtual meeting this year. I would like to give special recognition to Tax Institute accounting firm member FGMK who is a Bronze level sponsor.
We have a great speaker lineup - Tim Crane, President of Wintrust Financial Corporation, Tom Ricketts, Chair of the (soon to be 2020 World Champions) Chicago Cubs, and Charles Evans, the President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
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