January State Update Seminar a Success

Last week, our Massachusetts/Rhode Island Chapter held the annual state update seminar at The Sturbridge Host Hotel in Sturbridge, MA. In front of 75+ attendees, representatives and speakers from the region captivated the audience with state and federal updates galore.

Novlette Earlington
CT DRS

Novlette Earlington, Revenue Examiner 2 from the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services was the first presenter of the morning. The highlights of Novlette's presentation covered Pension Income Taxation, CHET (CT Higher Education Trust), CT Fraud Division cracking down on EIC claims as well as the departments collections actions on individual use taxes. Follow the CT DOR at http://www.ct.gov/drs/.

Scott Lewis & Richard Coia of the Rhode Island Division of Taxation presented together with Scott handling the individual side and Richard tackling to corporate and business side of things. Highlights included
Corporation Combined Reporting, Depreciation Recoupling/Decoupling and Returns help up on processing with errors on the corp side. On the individual, Scott talked about the Division's Integrated Tax Systems, Property Tax Relief, E-File Mandates as well as Collection Actions on Individual Use Taxes...do you see a pattern here? Updates from RI can be found online at http://www.tax.ri.gov/.

Up next was the entourage from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue - Brian Lynch, William Lauziere & George Barressi. Highlights from MA include changes to Form 1, the Senior Circuit Breaker Credit, Genisys the New DOR Tax System, Reviews of the year's TIRs, Directives, Rulings and of course, the department's Collections Actions on Individual & Business Use Taxes. The latest news is that MA DOR Commissioner Amy Pitter is leaving the department at the end of January. No replacement has been named yet as of this summary. Follow the MA DOR at http://www.mass.gov/dor/.

Brian Lynch
MA DOR

Taking us to the end of the day was Kathryn Keane, EA from the New York NATP Chapter. Her first energetic presentation covered highlights happening in New York relative to Preparer Education
Requirements, Corporate Credits, "DSUE" and NYS Collection Enforcement. We were also fortunate enough for Kathryn to present 2 hours of Federal Tax Updates including (but not limited to) the Able Act of 2014, the Affordable Care Act and Ongoing Payments to Survivors & Victims of Terrorist Acts. The NY Department of Taxation can be found at http://www.tax.ny.gov/.

If you would like an updated copy of Kathryn's slide presentation, please let us know.

Kathryn Keane, EA
New York NATP