KPMG TaxWatch Webcast Covers State and Local Tax Legislative Developments

State legislatures are moving fast on tax this year, and KPMG Washington National Tax's March 17 TaxWatch webcast gave practitioners a structured hour to cut through the noise.

The session brought together KPMG Washington National Tax professionals to walk through the latest activity in state legislatures, covering trends in expanding the sales tax to digital services, proposals for the "reform" of state taxes, and the question of whether states are conforming to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The conformity question is not an abstraction. The One Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law on July 4, 2025. Since then, states have been scrambling to decide what to adopt, what to reject, and at what cost. The passage of the legislation led to a flurry of state activity whereby various jurisdictions have updated their tax laws to either conform or decouple from certain changes the federal legislation made to the Internal Revenue Code. Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia have rolling conformity for their corporate income tax, while eighteen states have static conformity and one is truly selective. The webcast zeroed in on where specific legislatures have landed.

State tax news covered in the KPMG briefing included a California development regarding the "covered battery embedded product fee," Indiana eliminating a penalty for certain pass-through entities, Utah passing bills to impose tax on certain digital services, and an update on conformity developments across multiple states. That digital-services thread in Utah reflects a broader wave: legislatures in multiple states have spent the 2026 session debating whether to extend sales tax reach to streaming platforms, software subscriptions, and other digital products that traditional sales tax frameworks were never designed to capture.

Harley T. Duncan, a consultant to the KPMG State and Local Tax practice, led the session. He joined KPMG in 2008 and served as leader of the Washington National Tax State and Local Tax group through 2021, and he spent the previous 20 years as Executive Director of the Federation of Tax Administrators, working with Kansas and South Dakota state governments. Duncan focuses on sales, use and excise taxes, as well as matters of state tax policy and tax administration. His background makes him one of the few practitioners who has sat on both sides of the table: as a regulator setting state tax policy and now as an advisor helping companies navigate it.

For those who watched the live stream rather than the replay, there was an additional incentive. One continuing professional education credit was available to participants who attended the live webcast and met the eligibility requirements, with the session running approximately one hour. CPE credit is not available for viewing the webcast replay. For KPMG professionals managing busy-season schedules, that distinction matters: blocking an hour on March 17 was the only path to the credit.

KPMG TaxWatch functions as an ongoing source for analysis on current tax developments and legislative changes, with practitioners able to sign up for upcoming live webcasts and view previously recorded sessions. The March 17 session fits within that cadence, part of the firm's regular practitioner briefings designed to keep state and local tax professionals current as legislative sessions accelerate through the first quarter. With states facing significant revenue decisions tied to OBBBA conformity choices, the pace of that legislative activity is unlikely to slow before most sessions adjourn this spring.