Sales and Use Tax Management for New York Manufacturers

Audit Management and Assessment Reduction
Internal Compliance Reviews
Technical Support
Compliance System Development and Training

As full times sales tax professionals with the depth of a national network of sales and use tax experts, Sales Tax Plus can:

• train your company's personnel,
• help your company obtain maximum refunds from past overpayments of tax,
• lower your tax expense, and
• reduce your sales and use tax administrative costs.

Services for Companies Under Audit

Sales Tax Plus offers a full range of sales and use tax audit services for clients undergoing an audit by state tax authorities.

1. Overcompliance Review

A "reverse audit" can identify items of tax overpayment and will ensure that all available credits and exemptions are taken by your company. Any overcompliance during the audit period can be used to offset the Department's proposed assessment for underpayment of tax due, thereby reducing the net tax assessment, interest and penalties.

2. Audit Administration and Inquiry Response

When State auditors challenge our clients on specific items, Sales Tax Plus can provide authoritative support to prevent the issue from turning into a hard-to-reverse assessment. Prompt, reliable answers ensure better audit results.

3. Proposed Assessment Negotiation

As a State auditor identifies undercompliance items, Sales Tax Plus can assist your company's in-house personnel in performing a review of the auditor's workpapers and negotiation of difficult audit issues. This assistance can be provided at any stage of the audit process, giving you added leverage during pre-assessment negotiations.

4. Post-Assessment Representation

Sales Tax Plus professionals have represented taxpayers in administrative hearings and/or sales and use tax litigation in over 20 states. We maintain relationships with local counsel who are expert and well-respected in the sales and use tax field in their respective jurisdictions.

Internal Compliance Review

Even the best corporate tax administration programs can benefit from an internal compliance review performed by sales and use tax specialists. Sales Tax Plus will bring to your company our 35 years of combined experience in working with New York manufacturers. We will look for ways to reduce tax overpayments, with the goal of ensuring that your company pays only the sales tax that is actually due.

A confidential internal compliance review can also identify opportunities for your company to achieve substantial cost savings by modifying recordkeeping procedures, changing taxability decisions or modifying the characterization of certain equipment or services to produce a more accurate sales and use tax return and reduce tax paid. Finally, it will identify potential trouble spots in the event of a State audit and suggest ways to reduce potential State audit liability.

Utilities Utilization Review

Utility services (including electricity and natural gas) used in production and/or manufacturing processes are exempt from New York sales tax. Using an approved survey process, Sales Tax Plus can calculate an accurate exemption percentage for your utilities consumption. This could result in substantial tax savings and lower your company's utility bills.

Sales Tax Plus can work with your company's in-house electrical engineers or production personnel to determine the appropriate utility exemption percentage, or we can use our own electrical consultants to do the required power consumption survey of your plant.

Our personnel have experience in the detailed examination of production equipment power utilization and can assist with the preparation of company records in the format required by state tax authorities to obtain the full utility exemption you are qualified to receive.

Technical Support

Sales Tax Plus personnel are available at all times to support client technical needs. Our technical support services provide 24-hour turnaround response to client requests for taxability interpretations. Our clients can be assured that our technial support responses will reflect current case law, government advisory opinions and other sources of interpretative authority.

Compliance Systems Development, Personnel Training and Company Manuals

Sales Tax Plus personnel have analyzed the compliance programs of scores of New York manufacturers, ranging in size from $1 million to over $10 billion in gross sales. We can work with your personnel who are responsible for sales and use tax administration to improve your existing procedure or design a new compliance program that best fits your company's financial systems while improving tax compliance.

Whatever our specific project entails, one of the chief benefits of retaining Sales Tax Plus is the formal or informal training of company personnel that accompanies our work. This training helps your company to accurately report tax due, without making costly overpayments.

Sales Tax Plus professionals are the authors of the 468 page, New York State Sales and Use Tax Handbook for Manufacturers. This is the only publication which focuses on sales and use tax compliance and determining the taxable status of purchases for New York manufacturers. Sales Tax Plus can design a customized compliance manual for your company, based on your purchasing patterns, manufacturing methods, and customer base.

Cost Effectiveness and Fees

Our commitment to providing quality client service at reasonable cost ensures that work is completed on time and costs are kept under control. We believe our clients should receive at least a 10:1 return on investment for our services, measured by direct tax savings. We work very hard with clients to meet this goal or exceed it.

Our fees can be structured on the basis of hourly or per diem rates, a contingency arrangement, or a hybrid formula best suiting the client's needs.

Our personnel place an emphasis on teamwork. We operate as a fully integrated sales and use tax specialty service. Wherever in the United States our clients require our presence or expertise, we respond promptly and appropriately to protect their interests and achieve their goals.