This is from Spidell Tax seminar I took last week. It is pretty clear.
A Tennessee sole proprietor who provided consulting services to a California insurance agency
had California-source income that was taxable by California, even though the sole proprietor
performed all his services in Tennessee and was never physically present in California. (Appeal of
Bass, 2022-OTA-145) All of the trainings and consulting services conducted by the sole proprietor
for his California customer and its employees were conducted from Tennessee via Skype or personal
phone calls, or physically in Tennessee.
Under the OTA’s precedential decision in Appeal of Bindley, 2019-OTA-179P, physical presence
is not required to tax the income received by a nonresident sole proprietor if their customer receives
the benefit of the services in California. In addition, California’s nonresident sourcing regulation (18
Cal. Code Regs. §17951-4) incorporates California’s corporate apportionment rules (R&TC §25120 et
seq.), including the market-based sourcing rules (R&TC §21536; 18 Cal. Code Regs. §25136-2) if a
nonresident sole proprietor conducts a unitary business both inside and outside California.
Under the reasoning adopted by the OTA in Bindley, a sole proprietor conducts a unitary
business if they are in a single line of business, in this case “consulting.” Furthermore, because the
taxpayer operated in Tennessee but had customers in California, he was conducting business both
inside and outside California and therefore was subject to California’s corporate apportionment
rules.
Tom
Longview, TX