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In brief

In groundbreaking news, the Texas Third Court of Appeals has withdrawn its earlier opinion and issued a new opinion in the Hegar v. El Paso Electric Co. case.  In the case, which has attracted widespread attention, El Paso Electric filed a refund claim with the Texas Comptroller for sales taxes that it had paid on transactions involving “telemetry units that are related to step down transformers,” which are pieces of equipment used to transmit electricity.


In groundbreaking news, the Texas Third Court of Appeals has withdrawn its earlier opinion and issued a new opinion in the Hegar v. El Paso Electric Co. case.  In the case, which has attracted widespread attention, El Paso Electric filed a refund claim with the Texas Comptroller for sales taxes that it had paid on transactions involving “telemetry units that are related to step down transformers,” which are pieces of equipment used to transmit electricity.

The case attracted widespread attention because the court had previously required certain of the taxpayer’s arguments to be excluded on the basis that the taxpayer did not adequately raise those specific arguments in its redetermination request prior to its administrative hearing. However, the reissued en banc decision reversed the court’s prior decision and, instead determined that the taxpayer had reasonably set forth all of its arguments in its redetermination request as originally submitted. This decision is an important win for Texas taxpayers because it means taxpayers will not be strictly tied to extremely specific claims set forth in a redetermination request, and will continue to be permitted some latitude in their arguments at the administrative level so long as those taxpayers can tie their arguments back to their general contentions in the redetermination request.

For more information on these and other recent state and local tax updates, please see “The Texas Third Court of Appeals Changes Course in Hegar v. El Paso Electric Co.” on the SALT Savvy blog, available at www.saltsavvy.com.

Author

Stephen Long is a partner in Baker McKenzie's Tax Practice in Dallas.

Author

Jimmy Lucas is a tax associate in Baker McKenzie's Dallas office. Prior to joining Baker McKenzie, Jimmy practiced public accountancy at a Big 4 accounting firm. Jimmy is also a certified public accountant licensed in Texas.