MARSU Services

Initial Meeting

Marsu Associates will sit down and discuss the issues of your audit and answer any questions that you may have. We will discuss where your company is in the audit process and what is ahead. We will discuss our services and establish a strategic plan. We will determine what jobs can be performed by the company and what jobs will be performed by Marsu Associates to minimize the assessment. There is no charge for this initial meeting.

If your audit has not started yet, then it would best to call us now to discuss the audit process and answer any questions that you have. Our goal here is to relieve any anxiety that you may have about the upcoming audit and to educate you about the audit process so the time spent for preparing for the audit is minimized.

Two Prong Approach to Reduce Assessment

Marsu Associates proposes to reduce your assessment in two ways. First is to reduce the assessment to the lowest amount possible. Secondly is to submit with the assessment an offset credit/refund to reduce the tax due. By submitting the offset credit/refund, the interest and penalty is calculated on the net tax due instead of the original amount of tax due. So in essence you will be paid 30% interest and 10% penalty on the offset credit/refund amount approved. If the approved offset credit/refund is larger than your assessment amount, then your assessment will be reduced to zero and a refund application will have to be filed for the balance.

Field Audit Workpaper Review

Line Item Review:

Marsu Associates will review each line item on the asset, expenses and sales workpapers to determine if all or part of a line can be reduced. We will collect and present the documentation to the auditor.

Projection Methodology Review:

Marsu Associates will review the projection methodologies used for the expenses and sales to determine if an alternative methodology can be used for either schedule to decrease the assessment amount. We will collect and present this documentation to the auditor.

Supervisor Conversation/Meeting:

The experience of each auditor will vary. The auditor may have no or little experience with your industry. It maybe necessary to have a phone conversation or schedule a meeting with the auditor’s supervisor to discuss any issue(s) of the audit that we are in disagreement with.

Informal Hearing

Will meet with the hearing officer to present and provide documentation on any remaining issues not resolved in the field audit review. It may be best to mail in documentation prior to the informal hearing so the hearing officer has time to review. This allows the hearing officer to at least adjust the easy issues from the workpapers prior to the informal hearing meeting.

Tax Court

If by chance your audit has issues that you want to litigate, Marsu has worked with several lawyers that have experience in litigating Maryland sales tax cases.

Other States

Many businesses in Maryland sell products or provide services in the surrounding states of Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia. When doing work in other states, a business should get licensed for income, withholding, sales tax, etc. Licensed or not, a state will call upon a business working in their state to perform an audit to determine if tax has been properly paid and collected. Over the years, Marsu has been very successful in reducing an audit and securing refunds from these other states. If you are getting audited by a state, then please call us for a free phone or office consultation.