Credit and Refund Study
If you pay sales
tax to vendors, or accrue use tax on purchases, you may be
over-reporting your sales or use tax liability. Even
if you had a no-change audit, you may have overpaid the tax.
California State Board of Equalization auditors are trained
and paid to assess tax, not refund it. This is a fact of
life.
SToRM
SToRM stands for Sales Tax Recovery Methodology. SToRM
is the process we have successfully used for years to recover
overpayments of state sales and use tax.
Key Benefits of SToRM
- Potential to Recover Overpaid Sales and Use Taxes
- No Refund, No Fees
- Free Review of Sales and Use Tax Collection and Remittance
System
Specifically, SToRM utilizes four
components to maximize credits and refunds while minimizing
the time spent on the project. The four components
of SToRM are Research, Playbook, Review, and Refund.
Research
We use state-of-the-art research tools to gather information
and track changes in state laws, rules, and regulations,
as well as policy and court cases. Our research tools
allow us to remain on the cutting edge of changes in the
application of sales and use tax laws to companies required
to collect, remit and report state sales and use taxes. Many
of the changes and updates result in tax saving opportunities
that can result in retroactive claims for refund.
Playbook
We track changes in tax laws, policy, or court cases that
result in opportunities for companies to recover overpayments
or credits of state sales and use taxes. We incorporate
these changes into our "Playbook." The
playbook is a proprietary matrix we use to quickly match
your company with potential opportunities for sales and use
tax refunds.
Using the playbook, we will identify specific areas to examine,
and develop a plan to efficiently determine whether a sales
or use tax credit opportunity should be pursued. This
method has been proven to minimize the amount of client and
consultant time spent on recovery projects.
Review
The review process begins with a detailed examination of
your sales and use tax returns. This examination is
designed to uncover compliance errors that may result in
tax overpayments. Next, we use the playbook matrix
to test opportunities identified in the Playbook phase of
the review. Depending on the results of the test, we
will either expand our examination of these refund opportunities,
or determine that the sales tax recovery is immaterial and
move on.
If the testing results in a likely refund, and the volume
of information is large, we use information management software
to perform statistical samples of transactions. Sampling
allows us to test a small number of transactions and project
the results over a larger population. Statistical analysis
allows us to determine the extent to which the sample accurately
represents the population of the transactions. Our
use of technology allows us to minimize the time spent performing
a review, as well as the burden on your staff.
Refund
We use the results of our test to document and support the
sales tax credit or claim for refund. We file
the claim for you, document the adjustments, and manage the
refund claim throughout the entire review process. In
the event the sales tax credit can be claimed directly on
a sales and use tax return, we will adjust the affected return
to reflect the reduction in sales and use tax. Our
experience with state tax agencies allows us to streamline
the refund process and obtain the refund as quickly as possible.
Because our fees are based on the refunded amount, there
is no risk to you in the event a sales or use tax recovery
is not achieved.
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