Today’s sales and use tax audit is likely to rely on electronic financial data in lieu of hard copy records. The key variables are how adept the parties are in extracting the data and how knowledgeable they are in working with the results.

A former California senior tax auditor, Robert Schulte, in an article in the Journal of State Taxation, provides taxpayers with practical guidance for organizing, improving and analyzing their sales and use tax records.

The Federation of Tax Administrators (FTA) held its 76th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, June 8-11, 2008. Among the topics discussed was the review of the Uniform Division of Income for Tax Purposes Act (UDITPA) by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL).

Because there is a project underway to revise UDITPA, Taxes — The Magazine has reprinted the famous article by UDITPA’s principal drafter, William Pierce, which appeared in the October 1957 issue.

A federal court recently accepted the more lenient “because of litigation” test in determining whether a taxpayer had prepared its tax accrual workpapers in anticipation of litigation sufficient to successfully invoke the work product privilege.

The court found that the taxpayer met both tests when it requested opinions from its attorneys and accountants regarding its risky transactions. Further, the taxpayer had not waived privilege by disclosing the workpapers to an independent auditor, as an article in Tax Shelter Alert details.

As a result of higher energy costs and new and improved products, architects and building engineers are moving quickly to allow more natural daylight into buildings. The ability to maximize the utilization of more daylight within a building is called daylight harvesting.

An article in Corporate Business Taxation Monthly begins with a brief summary of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 tax incentives for building energy investments and then focuses specifically on daylight harvesting tax incentives.

For taxpayers who opted to have their 2007 federal income tax refund directly deposited, the IRS generally directly deposited their economic stimulus payment. Such taxpayers, whose stimulus payments were directly deposited into tax-favored accounts, may withdraw those amounts tax- and penalty-free, within certain time constraints.

An article in the Executive’s Tax & Management Report gives details on the tax-free withdrawals from retirement, health, and education plans, as well as other useful stimulus payment information and deadlines.