Whitey - 7:08 am on May 14, 2006 (gmt 0)

May the tax juridictions have fun.

Application of taxes in multiple jurisdictions can be even more fun.

If you have the definitive answers, maybe you'd let the big 4 accounting firms know, because in most cases they are still scratching their heads, with access to top tax lawyers and accountants.

This specific example may be sorted out, but once it's finished, there's the issue of multi jurisdictional sales taxes and their eligibility and effect on cross border tax treaties. Then income tax. Then defining the business [ ouch that's often very hard ].

And when one jurisdiction extracts a Court Order, what will happen when another extracts a different view and how will the non co operating jurisdictions match. Double taxation could be interesting.

To the best of my knowledge, authorities have backed off embarking on taking the complex matters to Court. I can't comment specifically on why the these US State authorities are confident that they have a case or the need to clarify the situation ... . either way, the longer this goes on , there's the potential for $ BILLIONS to be in eventual dispute - interesting