Tax News

CCH (cch.taxgroup.com) reports:

  New Hampshire has enacted legislation that prohibits New Hampshire retailers from providing private consumer information to a state for use in the determination of a consumer's or a retailer's sales and use tax liability in that state with respect to a New Hampshire retail purchase transaction, unless that state has provided formal notice to the New Hampshire Commissioner of Revenue Administration of its intention to collect use tax on such transactions and the Department of Justice has determined that the state's sales and use tax statutes:

  -- impose upon its residents a requirement to individually pay sales or use tax on the use, storage, or consumption of goods or services purchased in any other state;

  -- specifically identify the goods and services to which the use tax applies;

  -- require that the retailer or its affiliates have adequate physical presence to establish nexus with that state for the imposition of an obligation of the retailer to determine, collect, and remit tax with respect to purchases by that state's residents;

  -- require every resident to submit an annual statement to that state identifying each item purchased outside the state for use in the state;

  -- require that state or its residents to provide the retailer at the time of a New Hampshire retail purchase transaction with information establishing whether the goods or services purchased are intended to be used, stored, or consumed outside New Hampshire, and provide that this information is irrefutably presumed to be correct and complete and may be relied upon by retailers;

  -- require that state's tax agency to annually audit, investigate, or examine at least 10% of the total use tax returns filed by its residents;

  -- require that state's tax agency to conduct its audit, investigation, or examination practices with respect to residents' use tax returns in a manner that ensures that such practices are applied equally regardless of the state in which the sales transaction occurs, and to file an annual public report demonstrating compliance with this nondiscrimination requirement;

  -- create an irrebuttable presumption that, in the absence of voluntary information by the resident, the goods or services purchased are intended to be used in the state in which they are purchased; and

  -- explicitly impose use tax collection requirements on out-of-state retailers with respect to retail purchase transactions that are completed in those other states.

S.B. 5, Laws 2009, effective July 9, 2009