News and Events

New residency case: Matter of Sobotka, or can you be a part-year statutory resident?

By Brian Gordon

An important matter was addressed in a recent New York tax hearing in front of an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). The issue being: Can someone be domiciled in New York for part of a year, and be a statutory resident for the other part of the year?

New Exemption from Use Tax for Alcoholic Beverage Tasting

By Brian Gordon

What is Use Tax?

Usually, when a vendor sells you a product, they collect sales tax from you. When you purchase goods out of state from a vendor with no connection to New York, they are not required to charge or collect New York State Sales Tax. The most common instance of this is when you order goods from an out of state vendor to be delivered to you in New York. When these goods arrive in New York at your business or home, you owe the sales tax directly to New York. In this case, because you are the purchaser and you are “using” the goods in New York, the technical term for this tax is “Use Tax.”

Republic Airport in East Farmingdale added as Start-Up New York Facility

By Brian Gordon

Start-Up New York is a program that began last year to take advantage of unused land owned by the State of New York. The program is intended to promote job creation by transforming vacant sites into tax-free communities for new businesses across the state. The tax benefits include, in most cases, zero tax for ten years for both the new business and the employees that work there. They hope to attract high-tech and other start-ups, venture capital and other new business and investments from across the world. Excluded from this program are retail and wholesale businesses, restaurants, professional firms and hotels.

Miscellaneous Updates to New York Sales Tax Law: New for 2015

By Brian Gordon

Solar Energy

Currently, the purchase of solar equipment is exempt from sales tax. The laws of 2015 also exempt solar-generated electricity from state sales tax, with an option for localities. These changes take effect on December 1, 2015.

STVK in the News

Tax Audit Success

By Brian Gordon

This office has just completed a NYS Sales Tax audit of a restaurant that resulted in the reported sales being accepted as filed.

Many of our referrals come from CPAs that run into a problem or crisis with their client’s audit. May I suggest referring the audit to us at the beginning, before the crisis point? My experience as a NYS Tax Department District Audit Manager for the Metropolitan NY District enables me to observe things that others may not be aware of. Our results bear this out.

If you’re having a NYS audit, please call Brian Gordon for a free consultation at 516-938-5219 or email at bgordon@st-cpas.com.

Come see Brian Gordon speak about NYS Sales Tax and Residency Audits at the NCCPAP Long Island Symposium on November 20, 2015 at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury, NY.

For more information regarding State and Local Taxes, please visit
Brian Gordon's S.A.L.T Blog at:
www.st-cpas.com/blog.