Challenge
Upon being engaged we needed to rebuild trust with the State’s audit team through a series of collaborative meetings. While a good working relationship was soon established, getting the State to move from its position was proving to be difficult. The State had come to believe that the taxable percentage of the lease payment should be in the range of 15%. Our experience with these types of issues indicated that the proper tax base should be more in the range of 4%.
It was apparent that continuing to work through the audit documentation in the fashion that had been established by prior consultants would result in our client receiving a large, unwarranted assessment and cause Altus to fall short of our client’s expectations. Creative thinking was called for.