The New England Accounting Advisor

Updated guidance on corporate nexus, combined reporting, and market-based sourcing

Rhode Island recently enacted changes to corporate tax requirements that include updated guidance for corporate nexus, combined reporting, single sales factor apportionment and market-based sourcing.

Business Corporation Tax Corporate Nexus Regulation CT 15-02 (CT 15-02) provides enhanced guidance about which activities make a foreign corporate entity subject to Rhode Island income tax. Business Corporation Tax Apportionment of Net Income Regulation CT 15-04 (CT 15-04) makes changes to corporate tax reporting along the lines of the rules adopted for years 2009 and later by Massachusetts and those recently enacted by Connecticut. They are also similar to the market-based sourcing changes enacted by Massachusetts in 2015 and New York in 2016. Rhode Island’s adjustments, however, are more stringent than the changes adopted by Massachusetts and generally allow for fewer exemptions.

When unauthorized users penetrate public and private networks, they can disrupt, modify or even destroy companies' electronic data, which can lead to devastating consequences. As technology advances, more organized and sophisticated cyberattacks are becoming more increasingly prevalent and threatening. Many companies are investing in security measures intended to prevent attacks, but few have shifted their mindset to accept that data breaches in today's society are inevitable.

The forecast for this tax season calls for a high probability of risk. Tax-related fraud, including fraudulent tax return claims and unauthorized use of taxpayer Social Security numbers (SSNs) is nothing new; the IRS makes a recurring note of these risks in its “Dirty Dozen” series, a list of the most common risks facing taxpayers during filing season.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) completed its project on the classification and measurement of financial instruments with the release of Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2016-01, Financial Instruments- Overall (Topic 825-10) Recognition and Measurement of Financial Assets and Financial Liabilities. The project began as one of the significant convergence projects with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), however, differences between the two Boards has resulted in accounting standards for financial instruments that are not converged in many respects.

The deadline for filing the Form 114, Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR), is rapidly approaching. Introduced in September 2013 by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Form 114 FBAR helps monitor U.S. persons’ activity in foreign bank accounts.

Step 4 of the new five-step revenue recognition standard requires the allocation of the transaction price to each performance obligation in a contract with a customer. Entities reach this point by first identifying the contract with a customer, identifying the performance obligations in the contract and determining the transaction price.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) brought a slew of requirements to employers, both those who provide health insurance for their employees and those who don’t. Complying with the requirements and reporting on how compliance is met makes following the ACA particularly cumbersome.

Most of the ACA’s requirements affect employers with an average of at least 50 full-time employees (or full-time employee equivalents) during the calendar year.  Referred to as Applicable Large Employers (ALEs), these employers are in effect subject to an additional tax referred to as the Employee Shared Responsibility Payment if they do not offer adequate and affordable coverage to their employees and at least one employee enrolls in the ACA’s Health Insurance Marketplace. Controlled entities are considered in the aggregate when determining ACA eligibility.

Lease accounting received an accounting overhaul with the recent release of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)'s Accounting Standards Update 2016-02 Leases (Topic 842). The new standard most significantly changes lessee accounting compared to existing US GAAP, but also has some targeted changes for lessor accounting. Overall, ASU 2016-02 seeks to improve transparency to the economics of lease transactions and bring lease accounting into line with other recently released accounting standards updates, such as the changes to Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606).