Alston & Bird Tax Blog

Clark Calhoun

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About Clark Calhoun

Clark Calhoun represents clients in state and local tax controversy and litigation matters. He has represented clients on a wide range of state income, property and sales/use tax matters and has appeared before state and local administrative agencies, as well as numerous state trial and appellate courts.

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Controlling Interest Transfer Taxes (Part Two)

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Some states impose a controlling interest transfer tax (CITT) in a simple, straightforward manner, but, as a whole, most states’ CITT statutes suffer from ambiguous terms, complicated calculations, and a lack of guidance. Even the states with seriously solid music scenes. In their second article for the Journal of Multistate Taxation and Incentives reviewing states’ CITT statutes (you can find the first one here), Clark Calhoun and Kathleen Cornett discuss the remaining nine states (including the District of Columbia) that tax the transfer of a controlling interest in an entity that owns real [...]Read more

The Supreme Court Weighs a New State Tax Nexus Standard, Again

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The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the latest challenge to Quill’s physical-presence standard for collecting state use taxes. Our State & Local Tax Group provides a first-hand account of the lively debate and analyzes the Justices’ willingness to overturn the 25-year-old standard. South Dakota takes up Kennedy’s suggestion What is the real-dollar impact? Retroactivity becomes an issue Read the full advisory here. [...]Read more

Memo to the Tennessee Supreme Court: Read This Before You Decide Vodafone

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On June 2, 2015, the Tennessee Supreme Court heard oral argument in Vodafone’s appeal from an assertion of alternative apportionment by the Tennessee Department of Revenue in Vodafone, in which the Tennessee DOR asserted that the state’s statutorily-mandated costs-of-performance (COP) sourcing method unfairly under-represented the out-of-state service provider’s Tennessee receipts. On Sept. 3, 2015, a Virginia circuit court heard oral argument in a case in which the Virginia-based taxpayer argued that the state’s statutory COP method unfairly over-represented the taxpayer’s Virginia receipts. In [...]Read more

Connecticut Revenue Commissioner Suggests That States “Ramp Up” Economic Nexus for Sales Tax Purposes

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In a provocative op-ed published in the March/April issue of the Journal of Multistate Taxation and Incentives, the Connecticut Commissioner of Revenue Services (Kevin Sullivan) argues that given Congress’s apparent unwillingness to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act, the states should consider taking matters into their own hands and simply act as if Quill is no longer good law. The Commissioner appears to have been emboldened by Justice Kennedy’s concurrence in the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl, No. 13-1032, __ S. Ct. __ (Mar. 3, 2015), in [...]Read more

Maryland is Still Confused About How to Apply Nexus to Affiliated Groups

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Last week, in ConAgra Brands, Inc. v. Maryland Comptroller of the Treasury, No. 09-IN-00-0150 (Md. Tax Ct., Feb. 24, 2015), the Maryland Tax Court issued an opinion perpetuating the state’s erroneous Gore decision from 2014, essentially holding that a corporate subsidiary had nexus in Maryland because its corporate parent had nexus there.  The Tax Court was constrained by the Maryland Supreme Court’s decision in Gore Enterprise Holdings, Inc. v. Comptroller, 437 Md. 492 (2014), so perhaps it is not surprising that the Tax Court issued an opinion that is a continuation of that very confused [...]Read more