Advance-Wilson Industries, Inc. v. Commonwealth

297 A.2d 835, 7 Pa. Commw. 14, 1972 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 300
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedNovember 30, 1972
DocketAppeal, No. 589 Tr. Dkt. 1970
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 297 A.2d 835 (Advance-Wilson Industries, Inc. v. Commonwealth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Advance-Wilson Industries, Inc. v. Commonwealth, 297 A.2d 835, 7 Pa. Commw. 14, 1972 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 300 (Pa. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

Opinion by

Judge Crumlish, Jr.,

This is an appeal from a decision of the Board of Finance and Revenue sustaining a settlement of Corporate Net Income Tax made against appellant for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1.966 by the Department of Revenue and the Department of Auditor General. Appellant, a Delaware corporation authorized to do business in Pennsylvania, filed its Corporate Net Income Tax Report for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1966 admitting tax due in the amount of $11,-850.38. The Department of Revenue settled and the Department of Auditor General approved such settlement which determined the tax due as $24,408.43. In arriving at this figure appellant’s entire taxable income as reported for Federal Income Tax purposes was used which included income from its operations outside of Pennsylvania.

Appellant filed a Petition for Resettlement and subsequently a Petition for Review with the Board of Finance and Revenue. Both of those petitions were refused and the appeal now lies with this Court.1 An agreement to try without a jury and a partial stipulation of facts was entered into and additional testimony was adduced at an evidentiary hearing before this Court.

Findings of Fact

(1) Appellant is a holding company which has two operating divisions, Keystone Ridgeway Company and Electrolyzing Company.

[16]*16(2) The Keystone Ridgeway Company division operates three plants in Pennsylvania which are engaged in the manufacture and sale of ceramic tiles used in building construction, bathrooms and any place that might require flooring of a waterproof nature.

(3) The Certificate of Authority issued by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to the appellant as a foreign corporation permits appellant “to purchase, lease, produce, manufacture, sell and generally deal in and with building materials of all kinds.”

(4) The Electrolyzing Company division maintains places of business in Illinois and Rhode Island and conducts business throughout the United States. The business of this division is to receive machines or machine parts, equipment and tools which are subject to wear abrasion and, by the electrolyzing process, plate the parts in order to increase their useful longevity.

(5) The Certificate of Authority issued to appellant as a foreign corporation by the State of Illinois states the purposes for the transaction of business in the state to be: “To engage in the business of manufacturing, exploiting, producing, assembling, maintaining, processing, cleaning, milling, machining, repairing, improving, procuring, purchasing, disposing, selling and distributing of machines, equipment and tools of every kind and description and other goods, wares and products.”

(6) There is no money flow, no transfer of working capital, no intradivision sales or purchases or no accounting transactions between Keystone and Electrolyzing.

(7) There is no combined advertising or promotion program nor is there any common profit sharing or pension plan between Keystone and Electrolyzing.

(8) No employe of either division performs any function for the other.

[17]*17(9) There is no guarantee by either division of the indebtedness of the other.

(10) There is no interaction of the sales or purchasing departments between divisions.

Discussion

The issue in this case is whether income generated from appellant’s operation of the Electrolyzing division can be included in determining appellant’s corporate net income tax owed to the Commonwealth. Act of May 16, 1935, P. L. 208, §2, as amended, 72 P.S. §3420 (b) provides in part: “Where a corporation in any tax year beginning on or after the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred fifty-six, engages in a separate business outside of Pennsylvania, or owns property having a situs outside of Pennsylvania which business or property bears no relation to the exercise of the Pennsylvania franchise, the department, with the approval of the Auditor General, may determine the base for the tax imposed by this act for the tax year by excluding from the net income of such corporation as returned to and ascertained by the federal government, the net income from the business or property which bears no relation to the exercise of the Pennsylvania franchise.”

The Commonwealth contends that the appellant has not met its burden of proving that it is entitled to a multiform tax settlement for the year in question and, as a corollary to that contention, argues that the defendant’s operation is unitary rather than multiform because both divisions advance money for expenses to the home office and because the Electrolyzing division transacts some business in Pennsylvania.

Application of the corporate net income tax to the defendant on a multiform basis would require that this Court recognize that the defendant conducts two distinct and unrelated activities, the one its Keystone op[18]*18eration in Pennsylvania, and the other its Electrolyzing operation in Illinois and Rhode Island. Commonwealth v. American Tel. & Tel. Co., 382 Pa. 509, 514, 115 A. 2d 373 (1955). In a multiform situation, exclusion of income is allowed because the taxpayer is engaged in a separate business outside of Pennsylvania. Commonwealth v. ACF Industries, Inc., 441 Pa. 129, 135, 271 A. 2d 273 (1970); Morewood Realty Corp. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 6 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 244, 250, 253, A. 2d (1972). The purpose of this multiform concept as stated by former Chief Justice Stern in American Tel. & Tel., supra at 515, is to avoid an impermissible taxation of value or income by Pennsylvania and to insure that the allocation of taxable value to Pennsylvania bears a fair relation to the amount of local business done by the corporation within the state. Mr. Justice Cohen, writing for a majority in ACF Industries, supra at 142-143, delineated the principle to be applied in a multiform situation. “First, if a multistate business enterprise is conducted in a way that one, some or all of the business operations outside Pennsylvania are independent of and do not contribute to the business operations within this State, the factors attributable to the outside activity may be excluded.

“Second, in applying the foregoing principle to a particular case, we must focus upon the relationship between the Pennsylvania activity and the outside one, not the common relationship between these and the central corporate structure. Only if the impact of the latter on the operating units or activities is so pervasive as to negate any claim that they function independently from each other do we deny exclusion in this context.

“Third, without attempting to preclude exclusion in any given case, we reiterate our statement above that the manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing (or man[19]*19ufacturing and selling) activities of a single enterprise are not fit subjects for division and partial exclusion. On the other hand, a truly divisionalized business, conducting disparate activities with each division internally integrated with respect to manufacturing and selling, may well be in a position to make a valid claim for exclusion.”

In applying these principles to the facts of the instant case, we conclude that the income generated from the operation of the Electrolyzing division may not be included in determining the Corporate Net Income Tax due.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Commonwealth v. Advance-Wilson Industries, Inc.
317 A.2d 642 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1974)
Logan Clay Products Co. v. Commonwealth
315 A.2d 346 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1974)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
297 A.2d 835, 7 Pa. Commw. 14, 1972 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 300, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/advance-wilson-industries-inc-v-commonwealth-pacommwct-1972.