Profile

Jennifer Weidler Karpchuk represents companies and individuals in various matters related to state and local taxation, with an emphasis on the minimization of state and local tax obligations. She has extensive experience handling state and local tax matters, including those related to: corporate income taxes, franchise taxes, gross receipts taxes, excise taxes, personal income taxes, sales and use taxes, business privilege taxes, and real estate taxes.

Jennifer advises clients in all aspects of state and local tax compliance and litigation, including:

• Challenging taxing authorities' determinations of nexus creating activities;
• Challenging audit determinations and assessments; Seeking refunds from state and local governments;
• Handling administrative appeals at both the state and local levels; Litigating unresolved disputes in state and local courts;
• Handling post-trial appeals at all appellate levels; and Reducing interest and penalties associated with past due taxes through the use of state and local amnesty, voluntary disclosure programs and administrative appeals.

In addition, she handles transactional planning for clients and has experience:

• Determining nexus and potential nexus for sales and use tax, income tax, and gross receipts tax purposes;
• Advising clients on the tax implications of pending and past transactions;
• Planning for and mitigating tax burdens;
• Maximizing available tax opportunities or credits; and
• Reviewing nexus and developing strategies to minimize exposure.

Jennifer serves in a number of leadership roles. She is the current chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s State and Local Tax Committee, as well as an appointed member of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Tax Council. She also serves as the current secretary of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Tax Section. Jennifer is part of the American Bar Association’s State and Local Tax Committee’s executive committee, serving as co-chair of the Sales and Use Tax subcommittee and Miscellaneous Taxes subcommittee.

Jennifer writes a quarterly article for State Tax Notes and is a frequent contributor to The Legal Intelligencer. She was also co-author of The Legal Intelligencer’s Pennsylvania Tax Handbook and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Bar Association’s Property Tax Deskbook.

Experience

• Represented multistate corporations in challenging Pennsylvania’s Cost of Performance sourcing methods;
• Represented multistate corporations in litigating whether they had a taxable nexus in the City of Philadelphia or the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania;

• Successfully argued to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that taxpayers were entitled to a credit on overpayments of estimated Philadelphia Business Privilege Tax which resulted from adjustments made through a Revenue Agent Report pursuant to an Internal Revenue Service audit. The City of Philadelphia unsuccessfully argued that the three- year statute of limitations should apply both to refunds and to credits. Ruling in the taxpayers’ favor, the Court accepted Jennifer’s argument that the statute only provided for a statute of limitations for refunds, not credits, and therefore the taxpayer was entitled to credits for the overpayments; and

• Successfully argued that a local Business Privilege Tax imposed on fees paid by Pennsylvania franchisees to an out-of-state company’s regional office in the township was unconstitutional because it was not fairly apportioned. The court found that the township taxed all of the charges from franchise stores in Pennsylvania, even though the activity that generated the Pennsylvania charges resulted from economic activity from both in and outside Pennsylvania.

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Publications