Southwest Edition Texas Oklahoma Louisiana New Mexico
29
YEARS
VOL. 28 ISSUE 10 OCTOBER 2010
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ASA Texas Warns COGS Excludes Labor ASA Texas is warning shops that labor and other services are disallowed in calculating cost of goods sold for tax purposes. All shops are allowed to claim is the actual parts used for the repair. However, because this is such a common “error” in filing among auto repairers, Texas tax authorities are going to target auto repair shops in particular. The Comptroller’s office announced it will audit 29,000 businesses for the 2008 year. It has hired, or plans to hire, almost 500 auditors. A shop owner in Tomball who was going through a franchise tax audit was unaware of this exclusion and after his CPA did recalculation of his tax liability, discovered it would cost him an additional $7300.
The Texas comptroller website has posted the following message: “Franchise tax audits for report years 2008 and 2009 are now in full swing, and we’ve noticed that many entities in the service industry are incorrectly electing to use the cost of goods sold deduction to determine margin. “Section 171.1012 of the Texas Tax Code specifically provides that, in determining the cost of goods sold, the term “goods” means real or tangible personal property sold in the ordinary course of business and does not include services. The Tax Code does not allow a cost of goods sold deduction for entities that provide services such as dry cleaners, law firms, parking facilities,
NACE/CARS’ 2010 keynote speaker Kelly McDonald—a recognized expert on multicultural marketing and a former dealership sales executive—will address increasing diversity in the workplace and a changing workforce and customer base during the Opening GenNACE keynote eral Session. Sponspeaker, Kelly sored by DuPont, McDonald the General Session is 8:30–10 AM on Monday, October 11, followed immediately by the
opening of the NACE and CARS show floor. McDonald will address the vast diversity in the workforce these days and how businesses can work cohesively with their customer base, their employees and their labor force as a whole. “The consumer really has the power of choice,” McDonald told Autobody News. She detailed how consumers have so much choice and information available to them online that businesses really need to cater to a customer’s needs, preferences and styles to win their business. For businesses, the bar is set
See Texas Tax Audits, Page 24
NACE/CARS Offers Array of Speakers
See NACE/CARS, Page 6
JOB DESCRIPTION— ● Run California’s largest consumer protection agency ● Oversee more than 1,500 insurers with 300,000 workers ● Control a tenth of our largest state’s economy TASKS REQUIRED— ● Manage 1300 employees with a $200 million budget ● Field 300,000 consumer assistance calls annually ● Handle more than 35,000 consumer complaints ● Issue 170,000 agents/brokers licenses ● Investigate 24,000 suspected fraudulent referrals ● Initiate about 1,000 arrests annually ● Recover more than $48 million per year for consumers
FULL TIME POSITION, LONG HOURS— ● Requires election by voters of California ● Need to know plenty about collision repair
Who is Assemblyman DAVE JONES and why does he want to be California’s next Insurance Commissioner?
INTERVIEW by Ed Attanasio
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