Sales Tax Guided Help
Ideal For:
- Businesses with annual sales of $1M - $3M
- Appeals in up to 3 jurisdictions
Why Guided Appeals Service?
If you are not comfortable handling the sales tax appeals journey alone and need just a little expert assistance along the way, our guided approach is designed for those that want to handle the appeals process but have a team of experts to assist and answer questions along the way. The guided solution is Ideal for growing businesses needing occasional expert advice and support to address specific sales tax challenges.
What You Get:
- Access to expert-designed tools: All DIY library of forms, videos, and guides.
- Expert Assistance: Discuss your unique situation with our team of sales tax lawyers, CPAs or sales tax professionals. We help you develop your arguments and suggest what arguments could be made.
- Document Review : Submit your records and appeal form and get review and feedback from our team of sales tax experts, who are experienced sales tax lawyers, CPAs, and former state auditors.
- Conference Coaching: We can assist with preparing you for the conference, outlining how they go, and making your more comfortable to be an effective advocate for your business.
- Correspondence with the Appeal: Following our review your team handles all communications with the state revenue agency, including any negotiations, form filing and correspondence.
- Final Decision Issued: Our team works with you to discuss next steps in case the appeal did not produce adequate results.
Fully Managed Helper
Ideal For:
- Businesses with annual sales of $3 MM - $5 MM.
- Appeals in over 5 jurisdictions.
Why Fully Managed Appeals Help Services?
Designed for businesses that just want our experienced team to the handle the appeals process for them from start to finish. Our managed solution is the perfect solution for those that want to focus on their business while we focus on the appeal. Using our fully managed solution, we work with your team to strategize and discuss a comprehensive appeals plan, implement the plan, and handle all communications with the state, while you do what you do best – your business.
What You Get
- Access to expert-designed tools: Still benefit from comprehensive library of forms, videos, and guides.
- Expert Consultation: Consult with our team of sales tax lawyers, CPAs and other sales tax professionals about your sales tax appeal
- Communication & Negotiation: We handle all communication with state revenue agencies, including negotiations and correspondence.
- Advantages of our Fully Managed Appeal Service Include:
- Limit Distractions: Professional assistance manages the appeals process including interactions with the agency, letting you focus on running your business.
- Avoid Overproviding Records: Knowing what to share prevents inflated liabilities from unnecessary disclosures.
- Professional Advocacy: Expert framing of issues reduces sales tax assessments, penalties and interest.
- Sales Tax Appeals Expertise: Our team’s experience with audits, appeals, and litigation ensures informed, strategic handling of your case.
- Tax Collected, Not Remitted: Proper handling of collected but unpaid taxes avoids serious legal and even criminal complications.
- Significant Savings: Our expertise saves time and money by providing accurate documentation, strategic communication, and zealous advocacy.
Enterprise Appeals Solution
Ideal For:
- Businesses with annual sales over $5 MM
- Appeals in over 5 jurisdictions
- Complex industry issues
Why Enterprise Appeals Services?
We have decades of experience handling complex appeals for businesses of different sizes and industries. For larger businesses, businesses in complex industries, or nationwide companies, our traditional tiers may not be the best fit. Unlike our competitors, who use a one-size-fits all, cookie cutter approach, our Enterprise solution offers comprehensive plan for the intricacies of your business. If you have appeals in multiple states or ongoing appeal needs for your business, the enterprise solution is likely the answer for you.
What You Get:
- Tailored strategy: Develop a comprehensive plan to address complex appeal issues surrounding your unique business
- Dedicated expert team: Work with our sales tax professionals, including lawyers and CPAs, to tackle intricate or high-volume obligations.
- Ongoing communication: We manage all negotiations, correspondence, and meetings with the state sales tax agency.
- Final Decision: Following the issuance of the decision, we work with your team to prepare a strategy to effectively manage and respond to the notice in a timely fashion.
How Our Sales Tax Appeals Programs Work
Regardless of which tier you choose, our process is simple and tailored to your business’s needs. Unlike competitors who offer a one-size-fits-all approach, we provide flexible involvement to ensure your sales tax issues are addressed efficiently.
- Discovery & Planning
- Determine the level of assistance you need: DIY, Guided, Managed, or Enterprise.
- Resource Access
- All tiers include access to our comprehensive library of DIY tools, including forms, instructional videos, and detailed guides.
- Document Submission, Review, and Strategy
- Depending on your tier, you utilize our forms, guides and calculators (DIY), submit your documentation to our team to develop an appeal form with arguments that you can file and present (Guided) or that we can handle for you (Managed/Enterprise).
- Document Submission and Correspondence
- For Guided: We offer professional reviews and advice.
- For Managed or Enterprise: We take care of negotiations, correspondence, and submitting the documents with the states. We should know the likely outcome of the submission before the states does.
- Final Decision Issued
- Once the state makes its decision on your appeal, a final decision is typically issued.
- As part of our DIY and Guided Services, you can utilize our tools to respond appropriately. Under our Managed and Guided solutions, we work with you to start working to reduce the liability by filing a sales tax litigation case.
- Our team can handle it all for you or provide support when you need it.
Learn More
The grueling process of a state tax audit is finally over. But what happens if you do not agree with the outcome of the audit? On top of taxes, the state sales tax auditor also calculated penalties and interest, adding to the money you don’t believe is owed or you cannot afford. Sometimes an overinflated assessment is a result of poor auditing techniques, failure to produce records, auditor errors, or grey questions of taxability. Fortunately, using our tools or utilizing our state sales tax attorneys, consultants, and other professionals can challenge the findings on your behalf.
Most state tax professionals do not deal with state sales taxes enough to really know the ins and outs of both the state tax laws and the administrative procedure of fighting an audit assessment. Sales Tax Helper LLC primarily handles state and local taxes and has mastered the ins and outs of the issues and the procedures that help reduce your assessment. As state and local tax professionals, we challenge the state revenue agency and other state agencies on a regular basis. Our state sales tax consultants often assist with audits, protests, and resolving tax disputes at the administrative court level. Simply put, this is what we do every day.
What Is a State Sales Tax Appeal?
A state sales tax appeal is the process by which businesses challenge tax assessments or deficiency notices issued by a state revenue agency. These assessments typically arise from a state sales tax audit, where the auditor claims the business owes additional taxes, penalties, or interest. If you disagree with the audit findings, a sales tax appeal gives your business the opportunity to contest the assessment and reduce or eliminate the liability.
At Sales Tax Helper, we offer comprehensive sales tax appeal services to help businesses of all sizes navigate this challenging process. Whether you're handling the appeal on your own or require full-service representation, our solutions are tailored to your unique needs.
Why Appeal a Sales Tax Assessment?
A state sales tax assessment can be financially devastating if left unchallenged. However, appealing the assessment can lead to:
- Reduction or elimination of tax liabilities
- Waiver of penalties and interest
- Favorable payment terms through negotiated settlements
If your business has received a notice of assessment, it is crucial to act quickly to preserve your appeal rights. Some businesses appeal a sales tax liability merely to buy time and deal with the issue down the road.
The Sales Tax Appeal Process
After the audit: The end of a state sales tax audit results in a sales and use tax audit report that lays out the auditor’s findings. If you cannot agree with the auditor on the findings, a notice, such as a notice of determination (NOD), will be issued. Auditors are often trained to take a shotgun approach and the notice of field report or investigation can be alarmingly high.
It is not time to hit the panic button yet! The report along with audit findings gives you a detailed road map of what the auditor thinks is taxable and, if you know how to navigate the document, what you need to do to challenge the assessment.
Request to extend the statute of limitations: Even after the state sales tax auditor issues the audit report, the audit may not be over. A supervisor in the state’s revenue agency may decide additional work needs to be done or additional transactions are subject to tax. During this time, the Statute of limitations is running, and the auditor may request an extension. You may be giving up valuable rights by agreeing to extend or waive the statute of limitations.
Protest/Appeal the auditor’s assessment: After the state sales tax audit and the audit report has been issued, the next step for the agency is to formally issue the auditor’s proposed or final assessment. Once issued, the assessment must be challenged within a short timeframe (usually 30-60 days). This is a critical deadline, and you may give up important rights by not challenging the audit within this timeframe. If you have received a NOD and have not at least talked to someone experienced in state and local tax, now is definitely the time to do so.
Filing the Appeal: The next step is to file the appropriate appeal documents with the state revenue agency. This step is critical, as filing the wrong form or missing the deadline can jeopardize your appeal rights. Sales Tax Helper provides state-specific forms and templates to ensure you file correctly.
Preparing for the Appeals Conference: Most states offer an informal appeals conference, where businesses can present their case to a hearing officer or auditor. This conference is an opportunity to:
- Present evidence and documentation
- Dispute the state's findings
- Negotiate a settlement
Our team can assist you in preparing for this conference or handle the presentation on your behalf.
- The Final Decision: Following the appeals conference, the state will issue a final decision. This decision may:
- Eliminate the tax liability
- Partially reduce the assessment
- Sustain the assessment in full
If the outcome is unfavorable, you may have additional options to appeal through administrative courts or tax litigation.
Consider making an offer to settle your tax liability: During the redetermination period, the agency will entertain offers to settle the case. Often, you can get better results here than with the auditor. If you or your state tax professional seldom do state and local tax work, it might be difficult to evaluate fair versus unreasonable settlements. It is important to consider utilizing to negotiate a settlement without an experienced state and local tax lawyer or consultant.
File a formal protest with the in administrative or tax court: If you cannot get the case resolved with the agency, then you may have to file in the administrative or tax court, which is habitually a more efficient way for taxpayers to avoid having to go the more expensive judicial court route. However, this is a court-like proceeding, and while not required, you really should have a state sales tax attorney or consultant handle the case.
Contest a jeopardy assessment: The state may issue a notice of jeopardy determinations in certain situations. A jeopardy assessment gives the agency some accelerated rights that may include immediately beginning to try and collect. In this case, due to the jeopardy nature, the taxpayer only has 10 days to contest the assessment and must place a security deposit to fight the issue. You may, within the time allotment indicated on the notice, apply for an administrative hearing, but this does not stop collection activity.
Offer in compromise: Most state agencies allow offers in compromise (OIC). An offer in compromise is a different procedure, as it usually requires a final tax liability and an offer to settle that liability for some lesser amount.
To qualify for the OIC program, states usually have specific guidelines, such as:
- A closed account (i.e. liability outstanding)
- You are not disputing the liability in the agency or in court
- You are not currently in bankruptcy
- You are unable to pay the full amount
For most of these decisions, you do not need a state-licensed sales tax lawyer. You do need a sales tax professional who is well-versed with state sales tax audits and knows how to deal with auditors. It is an art, more than a science, to know when to say no, when to sign, whether to provide the auditor documentation, where to host the auditor, and what is reasonable for the amount of time for the auditor to complete the audit. While most state tax attorneys have experience in federal tax, most do not have experience handling state sales tax matters. At Sales Tax Helper LLC, our sales tax consulting team has decades of experience working with state sales tax auditors. Not hiring someone who knows what they are doing can cost your business tens, or even hundreds of thousands, of dollars.
Ready For Sales Tax Helper to handle your Sales Tax Appeal? Sign up online for DIY or Guided tools, or contact us for Managed and Enterprise solutions tailored to your needs.
