TeleStrategies' Communications Taxation conference, now in its 10th year, brings together more than 35 of the nation's top communication tax professionals to guide attendees through the ever changing communications taxation landscape. This year in particular, with many states, counties and municipalities facing dramatic budget shortfalls and looking to communications services as one way to generate needed revenue, the Communications Taxation program is more important then ever to attend.
The Communications Taxation conference will keep you up to date on the latest communications tax accounting practices and state and local regulatory, legislative and legal proceedings impacting the taxes your company pays.
Make your plans now to join with more than a hundred of your peers to be a part of this exciting training event. Attendees can earn up to 18 CPE credits.
Conference Agenda
7:00
Registration Opens
8:00
Continental Breakfast and Exhibits Open
8:45-10:00
Taxing with the Stars: A Service Provider Roundtable
Join a distinguished panel of communications service providers as they explore the challenges their companies face in navigating through today’s often confusing and complicated tax maze. Topics include: convergence of technologies and the inability of lawmakers to keep up, transaction tax issues facing companies today, emerging products and services that don’t fit into current taxing methodologies. We will explore top priorities for the cable, broadband and telecom industries for their tax departments and policy groups and efforts underway to achieve their goals.
Brian Goldstein, Partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers - Session Chair
Annabelle Canning, Vice President, State Tax Policy, Verizon Communications
Rick Heller, Executive Director, Transaction Tax Research, Planning, & Policy, AT&T
Mark Schichtel, Senior Vice President, Tax, Time Warner Cable
10:00-10:30
Refreshment Break and Exhibits
10:30-11:30 Session A
Make Sense of the New Stuff - Understanding Emerging Communications Service Offerings and the Resulting Tax Implications
What is all that cool technology Jack Bauer uses on 24? This session will provide an understandable overview of key enabling communications technologies, emerging service offerings and related tax considerations. Investigate new consumer and business markets including business model evolution and implications on tax. Enabling technology coverage will serve as the basis for these amazing emerging offerings. Example technology areas include: wireless (femtocells, WiMax/LTE, smart phones, mobile applications), unified communications (video conferencing, presence), managed services (cloud computing, security services, IT outsourcing), consumer services (IPTV, gaming, mashups with Web 2.0 companies), and open platform development. Time is running out...
Jim Nason, Tax Managing Partner, Telecommunications, Deloitte Tax LLP
Ajit M. Prabhu, Product Management Practice Leader, Telecom/Technology, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Dr. Matthew Lucas, Vice President, TeleStrategies, Inc.
Session B
Controlling Sales and Use Tax Payments: A Centralized Approach to Managing Purchases
Incorrect or inaccurate tax payments on purchases can be a huge drain on corporate spending. How does Verizon's tax department manage what is paid to vendors and tax authorities. Learn about Verizon's approach to: vendor management; dedicated purchase company; reviewing use tax accruals; and proper exemption certificate issuance.
Clark Baker, Manager, Transaction Tax, Verizon Communications
Howard Miller, Manager, Transaction Tax, Verizon Communications
David Rubenstein, CPA, Managing Editor, Telecommunications & Utilities Tax, CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business
11:40-12:40 Session A
The Only Thing We Have to Fear is _________: A State Legislative and Judicial Update
With the states facing an almost $80 billing dollar budget shortfall, nothing is off the table. Learn about:
- Some of the most fundamental changes to state tax policy and their impacts on your business
- The ongoing tax policy debates in Washington and throughout the country
- State court decisions that can save (or cost) you money including what do you do next.
Eric Tresh, Partner, Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan
Kristine Dankenbrink, Senior Vice President, Tax, Comcast
Meredith Garwood, Vice President of Tax Policy, Time Warner Cable
Session B
Taxability of Prepaid Calling Arrangements
Are your pre-paid calling arrangements at risk? Do your "post-paid" service offerings constitute prepaid calling arrangements under new or existing statutes and are they subject to telecommunications services taxes or sales and use taxes? The speakers will discuss bellwether several state statutes for prepaid and walk you through how these state are defining prepaid calling arrangements, how to make sure your marketing department isn't putting your prepaid calling plan at risk, and how to manage through the current trends.
Jeff Cohen, Director, Tax Content and Workflow Solutions, OneSource Sales & Use Tax, Thomson Reuters
Jeffrey W. Meigs, Senior Director, Professional Services, OneSource Sales & Use Tax, Thomson Reuters
12:40-2:00
Lunch, Networking and Exhibits
2:00-3:00 Session A
Bundled Service Tax Issues
The bundling of voice, data, wireless and even TV for a single price creates a taxation nightmare.
- What are the tax and regulatory issues in charging a single price for VoIP or circuit-switched calling plans?
- What are the tax issues when selling various telecom and non-telecom services for a single price?
- What are the revenue reporting issues for bundled transactions under accounting policy EITF-0021?
- What constitutes books and records for purposes of meeting the bundling exception under SSTP and other state tax laws?
Rick Heller, Executive Director, Transaction Tax Research, Planning & Policy, AT&T
Doug Hurst, Director of Transaction Taxes, Qwest Communications
Jim Nason, Tax Managing Partner, Telecommunications, Deloitte Tax LLP
Session B
Avoiding the Headaches after the Filing
Do you cross your fingers and hope that you are correctly filing the necessary returns with the various jurisdictions each month? If so, join this discussion group to discover how to quickly and accurately file your tax returns the first time. You'll get practical advice and best practice techniques to ensure your internal controls are up to the task. In addition, we will discuss some methods that take just a few minutes but enable you to avoid the potential hours of research and cost in penalties and interest when a jurisdiction won't accept the returns you filed.
Mike Weller, CPA, Compliance Analyst, BillSoft
Sandra Thomas, CPA, Tax Research Director, BillSoft
3:10-4:10 Session A
Tax Billing Issues and Solutions
Carrier representatives with tax billing expertise will discuss:
- How do you know that you are billing taxes and surcharges correctly and that they are flowing through systems to return?
- What tax billing-related controls are carriers putting in place for their Sarbanes-Oxley compliance?
- Are you checking your compliance file back to your general ledger?
- What is the process for proofing exemptions in order to make sure they are being tagged correctly?
- What is best practice for exemption archiving and interacting with billing systems?
- How do you effectively get info out of general ledger and interface with billing software?
Liz Bopp, Tax Director, AT&T
Sue Hunt, Manager, Tax Billing System, Qwest
Nick Mento, Director - Tax Research and Billing, Verizon
Session B
California UUTs - New Directions but Lingering Issues
The speakers will analyze the current state of local California utility users taxes and the principal legal and implementation issues of the past, present and future, including:
- Analyzing recent local election activities including voter-approval of modern telecom taxes
- Exploring the causes and likely future effects of UUT "modernization."
- Addressing issues that won't go away: FET exclusions and Proposition 218 (California Constitution) limitations.
- Tackling the special circumstances of prepaid wireless service providers.
Don Maynor, Esq., California Utility Users Tax and Franchise Law
Jim Kratochvill, Of Counsel, Morrison & Forrester
4:10-4:30
Break and Exhibits
4:30-5:30 Session A
The Long Arm of the Law: The Ever-Increasing Hunger of Taxing Agencies to Reach Out and Tax You
This session will explore the aggressive efforts by many state and local jurisdictions to extend their taxing powers across the country. These taxing bodies are devising creative ways to subject you to their taxing powers. The speakers will discuss new developments for nexus standards, what might create nexus for a communications firm, and tips for attempting to stay tax-free and maintain competitive pricing.
Jim Kranjc, Principal, Ryan & Company
Tom Donohoe, Partner, McDermott, Will & Emery
Session B
Protecting Yourself in the Case of an Audit
This session will provide practical advice in protecting yourself in the case of an audit and what you can do proactively to reduce the number of outstanding audits. Topics to be addressed include: what to bring, setting the auditor's expectations; preventing an excessive assessment when stat sampling is used, dealing with contract auditors, record retention, exemption management, and, negotiating with the auditor.
Kathy Saxton, Senior Member, Multistate Tax Service, Deloitte Tax LLP – Session Chair
Marie Harris, Senior Manager, Tax, T-Mobile
Audra Mitchell, State Tax Counsel, Sprint
5:30-6:30
Networking Reception and Exhibits
8:00
Exhibits Open
8:45-9:45 Session A
Business Ethics, Corporate Responsibility and the Communication Tax Professional
(Eligible for one Business Ethics CPE credit)
- Using a few simple communication tax case studies as backdrop, how can a communication professional identify and resolve potential ethical dilemmas?
- What are the ethical standards in determining FAS5 determination?
- What is the service provider's duty to disclose information during an audit?
Kendall Houghton, Partner, Baker & McKenzie LLP
Todd Lard, General Counsel, Council on State Taxation (COST)
Session B
NETWORKING ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS #1
Discuss current tax issues with your peers in an intimate and informal roundtable format. Each session will have a facilitator to help generate discussion and address any unanswered questions.
- Taxation of Digital Goods
Sandra Thomas, CPA, BillSoft - Transaction Tax Audit Defense
Jamie Brenner, PricewaterhouseCoopers - Considerations in Using Voluntary Disclosure Agreements
Amanda Gebicki, Grant McCarthy Group and Stephanie Bergeron, One Communications
9:45-10:10
Break and Exhibits
10:10-11:10 Session A
911 Tax Expansions to Prepaid Telecommunications Service
The speaker will:
- Explain the various administrative difficulties associated with imposing fixed monthly 911 taxes on prepaid telecommunication products (there's no monthly bill in which to surcharge the tax to customers).
- Summarize CTIA's recommended approach aimed at resolving this administrative nightmare in the context of wireless.
- Provide specific examples of how this strategy has succeeded (or not succeeded) in various 2009 state legislative campaigns.
John Cmelak, Vice President, State Tax Policy, Verizon Communications
Scott Mackey, Economist & Partner, Kimbell Sherman Ellis LLP
Session B
NETWORKING ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS #2
- Sales Tax Exemptions for Services
Nicholas A. Nesi, BDO Seidman, LLP - Income Tax Challenges
Matt Mandel, Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers - Situs Issues in Local Taxation and Alternative Approaches
Daniel T. Lawson, First American Proxix Solutions
11:20-12:20
Implementing a New Telecommunications Tax Engine
This session will touch on a variety of issues to consider when implementing a telecommunications tax engine. Starting with considerations when selecting a specific tax engine, the speakers will focus on critical issues for planning, including customer situs, exemptions, tax-on-tax, bill presentation, rounding, adjustments, conversion and customizations. Testing and post-implementation maintenance, controls / procedures, testing and support issues will also be discussed.
John Barnes, Senior Manager, KPMG LLP
Chris Miller, Director of Tax, MetroPCS