Council On State Taxation

The Council On State Taxation (COST) is an American non-profit trade association based in Washington, D.C. having over 500 member multi-state corporations engaged in interstate and international business.Citation |author= Turner, Timothy J. |year= 2005
title= Local government e-disclosure & comparisons |pages= 124, 292 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=WWVd8L9heH8C
isbn= 9780761830719 |publisher= University Press of America |location= Lanham, Maryland |oclc= 58676688 ] COST was formed in 1969 as the "Committee on State Taxation" by a handful of companies under the sponsorship of the Council of State Chambers of Commerce, an organization with which COST remains associated. In 2000, the organization changed its name to "Council on State Taxation". The main objective of COST is to preserve and promote fair state and local taxation practices as they apply to companies that maintain assets in multiple with differing tax codes.Citation
author = Nash, Shannon King; Djordjevich, edited by Vera; Vault, the staff of | year = 2004
title = Vault guide to tax law careers |pages= 117, 155 |url= http://books.google.com/books?id=p1VeGHUTv_sC
isbn = 9781581312737 | publisher = Vault | location = New York, NY | oclc = 55067323 ]

Public policy goals

# COST will educate policymakers and the public regarding the state and local tax system and business’ direct and indirect contributions to the state and local tax system. COST will further educate policymakers and the public regarding the state and local tax system’s impact on business, jobs and investment.
#:To this end, COST has offered continuing education instruction related to state and local taxes.
# COST will regularly evaluate the state and local tax system to determine whether the statutes, rules, legal decisions and policies governing tax administration are fair, efficient and customer-focused.
# COST will work to improve tax administration where it is not fair, efficient and customer-focused. Wherever possible, COST will see to partner on these efforts with the Federation of Tax Administrators, the Multistate Tax Commission, the National Conference of State Legislatures and other representatives of state and local governments.

Advocacy agenda

# Support fair, efficient and customer-focused tax administration.
# Support a physical presence nexus standard for all business activity taxes.
# Support radical simplification of the sales and use tax system for all vendors and purchasers, including identifying and promoting COST member interests in the Streamlined Sales Tax process
# Support amendments to existing related party expense disallowance statutes to the extent those statutes conflict with COST’s policy position.

References

External links

* [http://www.statetax.org COST website]