If you are a regular reader of Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”) Determinations and Orders issued at New York’s Division of Tax Appeals (“DTA”), you have probably observed the frequency with which ALJ’s dismiss petitions filed by taxpayers based on timeliness issues. For the uninitiated, the DTA’s rules of practice and procedure, which are part New York State’s regulations governing taxation and finance, generally require that taxpayers file a petition appealing an audit determination or conciliation order within 90 days of its issuance. Frequently, taxpayers fail to properly file their petition within this 90-day window. And, absent very unusual circumstances, ALJs who review this issue dismiss those petitions based on these procedural failures. Indeed, dozens of taxpayers have their petitions dismissed by ALJs each year for this very reason.
As practitioners who deal with New York income tax audits on a day-to-day basis, we often have a front row seat to new audit techniques and new areas of focus. And in recent years, we have noticed a lot more audit activity in the partnership or flow-through entity area. Most of this has centered around nonresident owners of flow-through entities, and more specifically the methodology in which these entities allocate income in and out of New York. As I have outlined before in some other articles (click here and here), often we can gain insight on trends like this by studying the audit guidelines that the Tax Department issues to its auditors. The Tax Department’s Nonresident Audit Guidelines are more widely-known, and available on the Tax Department's website., Over the years, however, the Tax Department has also issued different iterations of its Nonresident Allocation Guidelines, with the most recent version being issued in June 2013. But after about 17 focused minutes of Google searching (which is the maximum amount of time one should spend Googling something), I have not been able to find those guidelines anywhere on the Tax Department’s website, or on the Internet generally. That is, of course, until now.