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Eyet Law Opens Their Doors on a New Chapter

Eyet Law Opens Their Doors on a New Chapter

Mar 8, 2021 | General

On Friday, February 26, Eyet Law celebrated a long-awaited event—a ribbon cutting for our new office space in downtown New Brunswick, NJ. 

The socially-distanced gathering—attended by friends, family, colleagues, and clients—was a big day for our entire team. And, like any important moment, our ribbon cutting was a moment of looking both at the past, as well as the future for our team. 

Legal matters are about more than just the law. They’re also about other people, and how we work with others at Eyet Law is a pillar of our practice. Every day, we strive to connect with each other, build relationships, and lift one another up. In our new office, we’re looking forward to our future in New Brunswick and surrounding communities—and to finding ways to make a positive and significant impact. 

Pictured from left to right
Pamela Stefanek (Executive Director at New Brunswick City Center), Bruce Carnegie (Broker of Record at Red Hawk Realty LLC), Jacob Narva (Associate at Eyet Law LLC), Anika Chowdhuri (Lead Paraprofessional at Eyet Law LLC), Trinaé Hall (Chief Operations and Relationship Manager at Eyet Law LLC), Matthew Eyet (Principal at Eyet Law LLC), and Craig Schlosser (Vice President at Middlesex County Regional Chamber of Commerce).

On Friday February 26th, 2021 Eyet Law LLC officially opened their doors in the heart of downtown New Brunswick located at 382 George Street. A social distancing ribbon ceremony commenced at 1 PM surrounding family, friends, and clients who helped make Eyet Law LLC what it is today. We are excited to dig our roots in such a great city and look forward to growing with this vibrant city.

However, these types of endeavors are never the work of just one person. This ceremony also gave us a chance to reflect on our gratitude to the individuals and organizations who helped us get to this point. Our deepest gratitude goes out to the following:

  • Abatare Builders, for helping us realize our vision for our new offices
  • TFE Properties, for allowing us to take on space and facilitating our needs and requests throughout the process
  • Bruce Carnegie, the realtor who found us this perfect location
  • Trinae Hall, our amazing Chief Operating Officer and Relationship Manager, for facilitating and managing this entire endeavor 

And, of course, we have endless appreciation for our clients, whose support and trust allowed us to do this in the first place. 

We founded this firm with one goal: to provide exceptional legal service for clients across a range of legal matters. As we step into this new chapter for our firm, we’re excited to get to find ways to take our service to the next level. 

This move has been a long time coming, and we’re ready to get to work! 

Sales and Use Tax for Remote Sellers: New Jersey

Sales and Use Tax for Remote Sellers: New Jersey

Dec 7, 2020 | Tax Law

Although one of the major themes of 2020 is remote working, retail is an industry that had adapted to remote work long before the pandemic. From Etsy craft barons to direct-to-consumer startups, retail broke out of the brick-and-mortar mold with an e-commerce boom starting in the late 1990s. 

As a percentage of total retail sales, e-commerce sales have shown vigorous growth in the last decade, rising from 5.1 percent in 2007 to 13 percent in 2017. But some of that growth has been fueled by advantageous taxation practices for remote sellers, who are defined as sellers that don’t have a physical presence in a state but sell products or services for delivery there.

Ambiguity in tax laws allowed remote sellers to avoid paying sales taxes in states. However, this changed in 2018 when the United States Supreme Court declared in South Dakota v. Wayfair that individual states could require online sellers to pay state sales tax on their sales. 

Under this ruling, states are able to pass laws allowing them to collect sales taxes from remote sellers. Most states have put the legal framework for this into place, including New Jersey. 

To get the full picture of how sales and use tax applies to remote sellers in New Jersey, check out Eyet Law founder Matt Eyet’s comprehensive FAQ from 2019 in the prestigious Practical Law journal. Read on below for the key points.

Remote Sellers: Who Pays and For What Reason?

Particularly important to remote sellers is the concept of nexus. It’s the connection they have with a state, and it determines who pays taxes. Nexus can be the revenue a remote seller makes through sales in a state (economic nexus), a certain amount of sales referred from in-state business partners (click-through nexus), or through a party that facilitates a retail sale (marketplace nexus).

In New Jersey, there’s an economic threshold that determines economic nexus. Sellers have economic nexus if: 

  • The remote seller’s gross revenue from eligible sales delivered into New Jersey during the current or prior calendar year exceeds $100,000; or
  • The remote seller conducted 200 or more separate eligible transactions during the current or prior calendar year.

New Jersey also has established a click-through nexus standard which creates a rebuttable presumption that a remote seller has nexus in New Jersey if that remote seller:

  • Enters into an agreement to compensate a New Jersey independent contractor or representative for referring customers via a link on its website or otherwise to that out-of-state seller; and
  • Has sales from referrals to customers in New Jersey over $10,000 for the prior four quarterly periods ending on the last day of March, June, September, and December.

Finally, the third type of nexus which renders a remote seller’s sales into New Jersey taxable is marketplace nexus. Importantly, in this scenario where the remote/marketplace seller makes sales through a marketplace facilitator (such as Amazon), the remote/marketplace seller doesn’t need to collect and remit sales tax as that burden falls on the marketplace facilitator. Marketplace sellers and facilitators, however, can agree to a different arrangement for the collection and remittance of sales tax.

Registration and Tax Compliance

Because of the Wayfair decision, remote sellers need to register with tax authorities in states where they have nexus for tax purposes. New Jersey is a full member of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, which reduces tax compliance burdens on sellers. But while tax compliance may be simplified, remote sellers need to be mindful of penalties. New Jersey imposes penalties for late filing or payment and failure to file or pay. 

Remote retail is a major part of the retail economy, but just as technology shifts standards and best practices, so do tax laws. Paying state sales and use tax is part of the new normal for remote sellers. 

Don’t let this change catch you off guard. For a comprehensive overview of how New Jersey sales and use tax applies to remote sellers, take a look at Matt Eyet, Esq.’s guidance for 2019, as well as an updated version for 2020 in Practical Law. 

Have questions? Contact our team to schedule an appointment. 

Matthew T. Eyet’s Latest Article in Practical Law

Matthew T. Eyet’s Latest Article in Practical Law

Nov 16, 2020 | Practical Law

We’re proud to announce that Matthew T. Eyet of Eyet Law has recently been featured in the esteemed journal, Practical Law. This Q&A functions as a guide to remote sellers’ exposure to sales and use tax in New Jersey post-US Supreme Court decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. in 2018. Addressed within the Q&A are subjects including nexus for remote sellers, taxability based on economic nexus, economic nexus thresholds (including the threshold measurement period), the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (SSUTA), penalties for failure to comply with sales tax collection and remittance, and the taxation of marketplace sellers and hosts or facilitators.

Click here to read the full article.

 

RESPA Claims: Get Your Defense Teed Up

RESPA Claims: Get Your Defense Teed Up

Jul 1, 2020 | Real Estate

Courts have been grappling with a recent influx of claims made under §1024.41 of “Regulation X” which implements various provisions under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 (RESPA). The allure of section 1024.41 for borrowers is its effectiveness in obtaining multiple adjournments of a scheduled foreclosure sale. In addition, mortgage loan servicers beware because if a borrower is able to establish a violation of section 1024.41, the servicer could be on the hook for the borrower’s actual damages and all attorney’s fees and costs to bring suit.

With these somewhat elevated stakes in mind, how can a servicer avoid these unenviable consequences? One argument that has recently gained momentum can be attractive to servicers because if correct, the provisions in section 1024.41 that require sale adjournments never get triggered. Stated differently, a borrower is only entitled to the enhanced protections and rights of section 1024.41 if that borrower submits a “complete loss mitigation application” which is achieved when a “servicer has received all the information that the servicer requires from a borrower in evaluating applications for the loss mitigation options available to the borrower.” 12 C.F.R § 1024(b)(1) (emphasis added).

Importantly, note that the adjournment-triggering standard is servicer-centric. Therefore, servicers can precisely dictate what they require for an application to be considered “complete” in this context. Logically, then all the servicer needs to do is adequately convey its requirements to the borrower and the burden shifts to the borrower to establish that a “complete” application was submitted. Better yet for the servicers, to the extent the requirements are easily identifiable and were demonstrably conveyed to borrowers, the complete vs. incomplete test can be applied in the pre-answer, motion to dismiss context, thereby providing servicers with a viable option to avoid going to discovery on every section 1024.41 claim. Since there are numerous ways to properly tee this defense up, please contact our principal, Matthew Eyet, Esq, if you would like to further discuss this or any other financial services litigation issue.

Lifting Up Others: The Eyet Way

Lifting Up Others: The Eyet Way

Jun 1, 2020 | General

At Eyet Law, we believe that it’s important to connect with others, to build relationships and keep everyone on the same page.  In this commencement speech by Matt T. Eyet, Esq. delivered at his alma mater, Widener University Law School, that’s exactly what you’ll see. Rather than point out his own accomplishments or mimic a speech like someone just won a Grammy, Matt instead chose to show he and his classmates came from a single starting point and to motivate others on their journey.At Eyet Law, we believe that it’s important to connect with others, to build relationships and keep everyone on the same page.  In this commencement speech by Matt T. Eyet, Esq. delivered at his alma mater, Widener University Law School, that’s exactly what you’ll see. Rather than point out his own accomplishments or mimic a speech like someone just won a Grammy, Matt instead chose to show he and his classmates came from a single starting point and to motivate others on their journey.

The result? This speech was ultimately found so insightful that it’s used as part of a course syllabus, inspiring other law students to stay the course and believe in what they can accomplish with some dedication and hard work.

Matthew T. Eyet Commencement Speech Transcript
Widener University School of Law

Delivered Sunday, May 16, 2010 

Thank you Dean Ammons. Provost Allen, Members of the Board of Trustees, Overseers, Deans, Faculty, Staff, Graduates, Families, and Friends among us today:

I’d like to start by incorporating many of the thanks my good friend Nicole just gave into my speech, and add a special thanks to the select few nearest and dearest to me, without whom, I would not be the person I am today. With that said, I’ll share a brief a story.

The day was the third Monday in August of 2007. A day better known to many of us as the first day of law school. My first class was Property I with Professor John Dernbach, and we were covering the topic “Acquisition by Discovery.”

Having taken the requisite six hours to read all sixteen pages of the first assignment, I was primed to contribute on day one. So when Professor Dernbach opened up the floor for discussion, I raised my hand and spoke. Now I would like to be able to tell you that those first words were on point and deeply profound, but they were not. In fact, what I said made absolutely no sense, and contributed in no way to the class discussion. To quote a classic movie, everyone in the room was now dumber for having listened to me speak.

When I first began speaking, a few heads turned to look at the brave soul in the back of room. By the time my rant ended with a crescendo of stupidity, everyone had turned to get a look at the idiot. After all, he probably wasn’t going to be around much longer.

After Property, I had a three hour break until Torts; so I headed downstairs to the library lounge to look over the assignment. When I plopped down into the remarkably comfortable leather couch, my sleep-deprived eyes grew heavy, and I pondered if it would be acceptable to take a little nap.

As Nicole mentioned earlier, I am a Penn State grad. At Penn State there is a massive building in the middle of campus known as the Hub, with several hundred chairs one would find in the reception area of a nicer office. At any given time on a weekday, it is difficult to find an empty chair because so many students routinely use them to catch up on sleep. Figuring Widener’s lounge area was no different, I calmly drifted into oblivion.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, sleeping in the lounge is a far less common event at Widener than at Penn State. A short time later my groggy eyes opened to see a man walking by whom I would later come to know as Professor Robinette. For those of you unfamiliar with Professor Robinette, he is one authoritative looking man. The kind of guy that would be just as comfortable grilling West Point cadets as he is grilling first-year law students. As he strolled on by having noticed I had just been asleep, he gave me a brief, but unmistakable, “disappointed father” look.  Although he didn’t say anything aloud, I knew what he was thinking: “Look at this undisciplined One L, can’t hack it on day one.  He’s not gonna make it.”

Now there comes a point in a man’s life when his honor has been tarnished, and he can only do one of two things:  fight or flight. So naturally, as I exited the heavily tinted front doors of the library, I was momentarily blinded by the bright August sun.  Undeterred on my mission to get the hell out of there, I simply bowed my head and raised my left arm as a shield. I took about four more steps and then Boom! I walked directly into the flagpole.

As I reeled back in pain and embarrassment, I took a look over my right shoulder:  no one was there. And then over my left: the same. Just when I thought the coast was clear I heard a raspy voice from the area of the smoker’s pit ask if I was alright. It was none other than Sergeant Les Jumper on his late morning patrol. Realizing my infirmity was more mental than physical, he gave an exuberant chuckle and continued on. Although he did not verbalize his thoughts, I knew what he was thinking:  “This guy can barely make it to the parking lot, he’s got no shot to make it through law school.”

And so as I made my way into the parking lot without further incident, it became abundantly clear to me that I, in fact, would not make it, unless….I kept my mouth shut…my eyes open…and most importantly…my chin up.

Now it would be nice to wrap this speech up by simply repeating those commandments to my fellow graduates, but it would also be malpractice for me to assume anyone recently trained in the art of challenging everything, would be able to keep their mouth shut for very long, myself included. Nonetheless, I do urge my colleagues to maintain their willingness to encounter the unknown and their positive outlook in the future, because having done so for the past 990 days, we’re here today because WE made it. Thank you.