As word spread about the Supreme Court’s opinion in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., Dkt. No. 17-494, 485 U.S.        (June 21, 2018), tax administrators around the country popped open bottles of champagne and began toasting the end of the “physical presence” substantial nexus standard.  The sounds of celebration were, at least initially, particularly deafening in Louisiana, with its sixty-three (63) autonomous parish taxing jurisdictions that levy, administer and collect local sales and use tax on behalf of numerous cities, towns, districts and other local jurisdictions.  Remote sellers might have considered downing a drink or two to drown their sorrows at the thought of potentially having to navigate the complex systems of state and local sales taxes in Louisiana.

As tax administrators continued to read the Wayfair opinion, however, a sobering reality began to set in that, at least in the short term, Louisiana’s various taxing jurisdictions are in no better position to force remote sellers to collect and remit state and local sales taxes than they were before the Wayfair decision (and perhaps even a worse one).
Continue Reading Not So Fast: Louisiana State and Local Sales Taxes in a Post-Wayfair World

The Louisiana Department of Revenue has now issued a revised “Taxable Rate” chart (Form R-1002) to provide the Department’s understanding of the new Louisiana state-level sales/use/lease tax rates following the Louisiana legislature’s enactment of the sales tax revenue measure Act 1 (HB 10) in the recently-concluded third special session of the legislature, effective July 1,

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards (D) recently met with leaders from the Louisiana Legislature to discuss his draft 2018 Tax & Budget Priorities, including recommendations for how the State should address the long-term issue of its current taxing and spending structure, as well as the short-term issue of the $1 billion “fiscal cliff” looming

In October 2016, the Mississippi Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Mississippi Department of Revenue v. AT&T Corporation, concluding the state’s dividend exclusion statute violated the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. The statute, Miss. Code Ann. Section 27-7-15(4)(i), unconstitutionally discriminated against interstate commerce by excluding from Mississippi gross income any dividends