Today I attended the first Tri-State Tax Update for New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania sponsored by the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education, and co-sponsored by the NJ State Bar Association’s Taxation Law Section, the National Society of Tax Professionals and the Central Jersey Chapter of the Society of Enrolled Agents.
I signed up for the half-day seminar out of curiosity. I heard about it from a bulk emailing to NJ, NY and PA NSTP members.
The seminar was held at the New Jersey Law Center in New Brunswick, just off Route 1. It was a good facility for such an event, with an excellent and easy to get to central location. There was a basic “continental breakfast” set-up, coffee or tea and bagels and muffins - nothing fancy, but adequate.
My first reaction was surprise at the extremely poor turn-out. The annual state tax seminar run by the NJ chapter of NATP is always “chock-a-block” full, and the national NATP and NSTP sponsored year-end federal tax updates are also usually well attended. I first thought that traffic had delayed attendees, but there were only 2 or 3 late arrivals.
When I first heard about this seminar I thought that half a day is not enough to properly cover the three states. I had attended a similar half-day multi-state update offered by the local Society of Enrolled Agents or Accountants (I forget whom) several years ago, and indeed 4 hours was not enough time for the topics on the agenda.
As it turned out, the time frame worked out perfectly. Two lawyers from the Newark office of McCarter and English spoke on NJ – one on sales tax and one on corporate tax. To my great disappointment there was absolutely no discussion of the NJ Gross Income Tax for individuals or the NJ Homestead Property Tax Rebate program.
The sales tax presentation reviewed the new items subject to the tax effective last year. It was pointed out that NJ, in a truly rare case of giving the taxpayer a break, does not charge sales tax on limousine services for funerals.
The corporate tax speaker pointed out that there were no new legislative changes to the NJ corporate business tax (the DFBs in Trenton didn’t dare increase the minimum tax any more). The only items of note were the fact that there was no more Alternative Minimum Assessment (AMA) effective with tax years beginning after June 30, 2006, or corporate level tax on Sub-S corporations for tax year 2007, as these items have expired based on prior legislation and had not been extended. He spent most of his presentation on the issues of “nexus” and the “throw-away” provision for allocating tax to New Jersey.
There were apparently no changes to individual state income taxes for New York State and City and Pennsylvania – or at least none of any consequence mentioned. The New York speaker, a lawyer from a NYC based CPA firm, briefly discussed the “convenience of employer” rules for allocating W-2 income earned outside of New York for nonresidents, but concentrated on corporate topics. Two more representatives of McCarter and English, this time from the Philadelphia office, spoke on PA issues.
The speakers were all good, and well-informed on their particular topics, with the NJ sales tax presenter and the main PA speaker standing out.
FYI, I have limited my practice to 1040s. I no longer accept corporate clients, although I do have a few remaining corporation returns to do each year for long-time clients and personal friends to whom I cannot say “no”, so I still need to keep abreast of at least NJ corporate tax issues. My main area of interest in attending a tri-state update seminar such as this lies with individual income tax changes and issues. I do several non-resident and resident NY returns, although not as many as in the past, and a couple of PA state returns. As today’s event was geared toward lawyers, despite the NSTP and NJSEA co-sponsorship, it concentrated on corporate and sales tax issues. For that reason I will not be attending this particular update in the future.
For my money the NJ chapter of NATP does an excellent job, for the most part, with its annual January state tax update – although I wish it would skip federal issues and present at least a NY update each year.
Years ago I attended a two-day true multi-state update seminar (it not only had NJ, NY and PA presentations but heard from other northeast states as well) in Rockland County, a joint effort of several NATP state chapters. This event provided actual examples of state returns for non-resident and part-year individuals with line by line explanations. I wish one of the various tax preparation organizations would revive this seminar.
TAFN
I signed up for the half-day seminar out of curiosity. I heard about it from a bulk emailing to NJ, NY and PA NSTP members.
The seminar was held at the New Jersey Law Center in New Brunswick, just off Route 1. It was a good facility for such an event, with an excellent and easy to get to central location. There was a basic “continental breakfast” set-up, coffee or tea and bagels and muffins - nothing fancy, but adequate.
My first reaction was surprise at the extremely poor turn-out. The annual state tax seminar run by the NJ chapter of NATP is always “chock-a-block” full, and the national NATP and NSTP sponsored year-end federal tax updates are also usually well attended. I first thought that traffic had delayed attendees, but there were only 2 or 3 late arrivals.
When I first heard about this seminar I thought that half a day is not enough to properly cover the three states. I had attended a similar half-day multi-state update offered by the local Society of Enrolled Agents or Accountants (I forget whom) several years ago, and indeed 4 hours was not enough time for the topics on the agenda.
As it turned out, the time frame worked out perfectly. Two lawyers from the Newark office of McCarter and English spoke on NJ – one on sales tax and one on corporate tax. To my great disappointment there was absolutely no discussion of the NJ Gross Income Tax for individuals or the NJ Homestead Property Tax Rebate program.
The sales tax presentation reviewed the new items subject to the tax effective last year. It was pointed out that NJ, in a truly rare case of giving the taxpayer a break, does not charge sales tax on limousine services for funerals.
The corporate tax speaker pointed out that there were no new legislative changes to the NJ corporate business tax (the DFBs in Trenton didn’t dare increase the minimum tax any more). The only items of note were the fact that there was no more Alternative Minimum Assessment (AMA) effective with tax years beginning after June 30, 2006, or corporate level tax on Sub-S corporations for tax year 2007, as these items have expired based on prior legislation and had not been extended. He spent most of his presentation on the issues of “nexus” and the “throw-away” provision for allocating tax to New Jersey.
There were apparently no changes to individual state income taxes for New York State and City and Pennsylvania – or at least none of any consequence mentioned. The New York speaker, a lawyer from a NYC based CPA firm, briefly discussed the “convenience of employer” rules for allocating W-2 income earned outside of New York for nonresidents, but concentrated on corporate topics. Two more representatives of McCarter and English, this time from the Philadelphia office, spoke on PA issues.
The speakers were all good, and well-informed on their particular topics, with the NJ sales tax presenter and the main PA speaker standing out.
FYI, I have limited my practice to 1040s. I no longer accept corporate clients, although I do have a few remaining corporation returns to do each year for long-time clients and personal friends to whom I cannot say “no”, so I still need to keep abreast of at least NJ corporate tax issues. My main area of interest in attending a tri-state update seminar such as this lies with individual income tax changes and issues. I do several non-resident and resident NY returns, although not as many as in the past, and a couple of PA state returns. As today’s event was geared toward lawyers, despite the NSTP and NJSEA co-sponsorship, it concentrated on corporate and sales tax issues. For that reason I will not be attending this particular update in the future.
For my money the NJ chapter of NATP does an excellent job, for the most part, with its annual January state tax update – although I wish it would skip federal issues and present at least a NY update each year.
Years ago I attended a two-day true multi-state update seminar (it not only had NJ, NY and PA presentations but heard from other northeast states as well) in Rockland County, a joint effort of several NATP state chapters. This event provided actual examples of state returns for non-resident and part-year individuals with line by line explanations. I wish one of the various tax preparation organizations would revive this seminar.
TAFN
2 comments:
Do you know off the top of your head what the standard for Sales Tax Nexus is for New Jersey? Does the mere sale of a tangible product shipped from a NC company to a NJ customer equate to a requirement to collect sales tax in NJ?
thank you for any guidance provided
Anonymous-
I am afraid that I do not know from either the top or bottom of my head. I do not deal with Sales Tax issues in my practice, unless absolutely, positively necessary. I try to limit myself to 1040 (and NJ-1040) preparation only.
I do invite readers with experience in NJ Sales Taxes to respond to this question.
RDF
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