Alani v. Oklahoma Tax Commission

2006 OK CIV APP 54, 135 P.3d 828, 2005 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 136
CourtCourt of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedDecember 27, 2005
DocketNo. 101,068
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 2006 OK CIV APP 54 (Alani v. Oklahoma Tax Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alani v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, 2006 OK CIV APP 54, 135 P.3d 828, 2005 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 136 (Okla. Ct. App. 2005).

Opinion

Opinion by

JANE P. WISEMAN, Judge.

¶ 1 Casey Dean Alani (Protestant), a nonresident of Oklahoma, seeks review of an order of the Oklahoma Tax Commission denying a protest to the Oklahoma Tax Commission’s demand that Protestant file an income tax return in regard to royalty income received from oil and gas property located in Oklahoma. The issue on appeal is whether the Oklahoma Tax Commission (OTC) has jurisdiction to impose and collect income tax from a nonresident on oil or gas royalty income generated from Oklahoma property. We answer in the affirmative and affirm the OTC’s order.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶ 2 Upon receiving information that Protestant had sufficient royalty income in 1991 to require filing an income tax return, the OTC/Income Tax Division, on February 3, 1995, sent Protestant a letter advising him of the need to file a tax return. The letter further advised Protestant that 68 O.S. § 2369(D) authorizes the OTC “to order all production payments withheld upon a determination that a person has failed to file a state income tax return or to pay state income tax.” The letter stated that Protestant was required to file a return within 30 days.

¶ 3 Protestant responded with a letter requesting a hearing, asserting the OTC had no right to collect income tax from him as a nonresident. Although Protestant admitted in the letter that he receives royalty income from property located in Oklahoma, he argued that the OTC has no personal jurisdiction to impose on or collect an income tax from him.

¶ 4 After several continuances, the protest was heard on September 23, 1997, by an administrative law judge. Protestant again admitted at the hearing that he receives royalty income from oil or gas leases in Oklahoma. With permission from the administrative law judge, the OTC filed a supplemental brief addressing issues that had been raised in the hearing.

¶ 5 On April 2, 2004, the administrative law judge issued findings of fact and conclusions of law, ultimately concluding that “royalties received by nonresidents as a result of their ownership of a mineral interest in land within Oklahoma are properly subject to Oklahoma income tax.” The OTC adopted the administrative law judge’s findings and recommendations on July 9, 2004. Protestant seeks review of the OTC’s order.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶ 6 Where a party is a nonresident, the record on appeal must affirmatively show the contacts required to satisfy due process. Conoco Inc. v. Agrico Chem. Co., 2004 OK 83, ¶ 20, 115 P.3d 829, 835. “On de novo review, this Court will canvass the record for proof that the nonresident party had sufficient contacts with the state to assure that traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice would not be offended if this state exercised in personam jurisdiction.” Id.

ANALYSIS

¶ 7 Protestant argues that the State of Oklahoma, through the OTC, does not have the authority to tax his income or enforce the tax because he is a not a resident of Oklahoma and, therefore, the OTC does not have personal jurisdiction over him. According to Protestant’s argument, the OTC’s actions violate due process.

¶ 8 The Oklahoma Tax Code provides for taxing income of nonresidents attributable to the “ownership of any interest in real or tangible personal property in this state.” 68 O.S.1991 § 2362(l)(a). According to the statute in effect in 1991, every nonresident individual having annual Oklahoma gross income of $1,000 or more was required to file a return. 68 O.S.1991 § 2368(A)(4). If a person who receives production payments, including royalty payments, fails to file an income tax return or pay income tax, the OTC may issue an order to withhold future production payments. 68 O.S.1991 § 2369(D)(1).

[831]*831¶ 9 The United States Supreme Court has on several occasions addressed the issue of a state’s jurisdiction to tax a nonresident. In Shaffer v. Carter, 252 U.S. 37, 40 S.Ct. 221, 64 L.Ed. 445 (1920), the nonresident taxpayer protested the Oklahoma state auditor’s attempts to assess and collect income taxes from him. The taxpayer owned, developed, and operated a number of oil and gas mining leases and owned certain oil-producing land. He argued that, under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Oklahoma did not have jurisdiction to levy a tax upon the income of nonresidents and that the lien on his property was invalid because it was imposed on all his real and personal property without regard to its relation to the production of his income. The Supreme Court rejected both arguments.

¶ 10 The Court held that states have “complete dominion over all persons, property, and business transaction within their borders; they assume and perform the duty of preserving and protecting all such persons, property, and business, and, in consequence, have the power normally pertaining to governments to resort to all reasonable forms of taxation in order to defray the governmental expenses.” Id. at 50, 40 S.Ct. at 224-25. States may therefore tax the land as well as the crop, the tree as well as the fruit, the mine as well as the product, and the business as well as the profit derived from it. Id. at 50-51, 40 S.Ct. at 225. This right to tax applies equally to “incomes accruing to nonresidents from them property or business within the state.” Id. at 52, 40 S.Ct. at 225. The Court reasoned:

[T]he very fact that a citizen of one state has the right to hold property or carry on an occupation or business in another is a very reasonable ground for subjecting such nonresident, although not personally, yet to the extent of his property held, or his occupation or business carried on therein, to a duty to pay taxes not more onerous in effect than those imposed under like circumstances upon citizens of the latter state.

Id. at 53, 40 S.Ct. at 226.

¶ 11 The Court also determined that Oklahoma had jurisdiction to enforce the income tax. The Court held:

[I]t is evident that the lien will rest upon the same property interests which were the source of the income upon which the tax was imposed. The entire jurisdiction of the state over appellant’s property and business and the income that he derived from them — the only jurisdiction that it has sought to assert — is a jurisdiction in rem; and we are clear that the state acted within its lawful power in treating his property interests and business as having both unity and continuity.

Id. at 59, 40 S.Ct. at 228.

¶ 12 In addressing the issue of taxation of income of nonresidents, the Supreme Court has focused on the connection that the income has with the state as well as the protections provided by the states. In International Harvester Co. v. Wisconsin Department of Taxation, 322 U.S. 435, 64 S.Ct. 1060, 88 L.Ed. 1373 (1944), the state of Wisconsin imposed a tax on income derived from dividends paid to stockholders, including nonresidents, as measured by income earned by the corporation in Wisconsin. The Supreme Court upheld the tax as valid because “[a] state may tax such part of the income of a non-resident as is fairly attributable either to property located in the state

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Bluebook (online)
2006 OK CIV APP 54, 135 P.3d 828, 2005 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 136, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alani-v-oklahoma-tax-commission-oklacivapp-2005.