Washington Tax Decisions

An individual grantor, who transferred Washington real estate to a grantee who agreed to pay $ . . . to the grantor’s revocable trust secured by the property, protests REET assessed on the transfer. The grantor alleges that he was acting as trustee on behalf of the grantee, who was a beneficiary of the trust. Because the grantor could revoke the trust and receive the payments from the grantee under the deed of trust, the transfer was subject to REET measured by the amount due under the deed of trust.

A forest harvester protests timber tax assessed on the scaled volume of logs sold to a chipwood processor. Because the buyer’s facility was not an approved chipwood destination when the logs were delivered, the harvester could not pay the tax based on the weight of the wood. We deny the petition.

A [Taxpayer] appeals a letter ruling that improvements to its combined sewer and storm water system do not qualify as public road construction. We sustain the letter ruling.

The owner of a now defunct used car dealership appeals a TFAA on the basis that he was not responsible for the collection and payment of trust fund amounts and had no control over trust fund amounts. Petition denied.

A lessor of employees to affiliated companies petitions for reconsideration of Det. No. 14-0237, which held that Taxpayer cannot exclude amounts received for payroll and employee expenses from its measure of B&O tax, and the Department can assess Taxpayer for tax periods 2004 through 2006 when it was previously registered but not registered when audited by the Department. Taxpayer’s petition is denied

Health care providers appeal the denials of their requests for refund of B&O tax paid on receipts from insurance carriers that participate in federal health insurance programs, asserting that Washington’s tax is preempted by federal law. Taxpayers’ petitions are denied.

An electrician protests reclassification of sales from wholesale to retail where valid reseller permit information was not available. Because no records were provided to substantiate any additional wholesale sales, we sustain the assessment and deny the Taxpayer’s petition.

The managing member of a now defunct restaurant and lounge protests a TFAA against her, stating that the amount assessed against the defunct business was in error. We conclude that Taxpayer is responsible for the LLC’s collected and unremitted retail sales tax and may not challenge [the amount assessed against] the defunct business. Accordingly, we affirm the assessment.

A seller of liquor and wine appeals the assessment of service and other activities B&O tax on grounds that it relied on advice from the Department in not reporting its commission income. Taxpayer also appeals the assessment of spirits sales tax on grounds that Audit erred by not deducting the 17 percent LCB fee from the measure of the tax and assessing the tax on beverages with less than 37% alcohol content. We deny the petition.