Washington Tax Decisions

A commercial establishment that sells food, including piroshkies and other pastries, protests a Taxpayer Information and Education letter ruling that it is required to charge retail sales tax on the sale of all piroshkies. The Taxpayer argues that its meat and vegetarian piroshkies are bakery items exempt from retail sales tax. We deny Taxpayer’s petition.

A fuel dealer-franchisee requests a refund of B&O tax. Because the franchisee’s customers were liable only to the dealer-franchisee who billed them, we conclude that the franchisee purchased and resold the fuel to its customers at whatever location they purchased the fuel. We deny the petition for refund.

An outdoor lighting company protests the imposition of the evasion penalty on retail sales tax that the company collected, but did not remit to the Department of Revenue. The taxpayer’s owner claims that he did not willfully fail to remit the collected retail sales tax under WAC 458-20-228(5)(f)(ii) (Rule 228) because he did not know how to remit the taxes and had difficulty filling out the combined excise tax returns because of his medical condition. We uphold the evasion penalty.

A commercial and industrial real estate developer protests the assessment of service and other activities business and occupation (B&O) tax on income received from tenant late fees. We affirm the audit assessment.