All PEO, Inc. v. Employment Department

111 P.3d 798, 199 Or. App. 293, 2005 Ore. App. LEXIS 528
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedApril 27, 2005
Docket03-TAX-00039; A121747
StatusPublished

This text of 111 P.3d 798 (All PEO, Inc. v. Employment Department) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
All PEO, Inc. v. Employment Department, 111 P.3d 798, 199 Or. App. 293, 2005 Ore. App. LEXIS 528 (Or. Ct. App. 2005).

Opinion

LANDAU, J.

In this unemployment insurance tax case, the issue is which of three tax rates applies to petitioner for the first quarter of2002 — a rate for new employers, a rate for existing employers, or a rate for an employer that has fully acquired another’s business. The Employment Department (department) concluded that, because petitioner recently had acquired some of the incidents of another business, petitioner was a new and separate entity subject to the rate for new employers. Petitioner seeks judicial review, arguing that it is not a new and separate entity, but instead is a continuation of the same entity and therefore is subject to the lower rate for existing employers. We affirm.

We begin with a brief summary of the statutory framework so that the facts may be understood in proper context. Unemployment insurance benefits are funded by a payroll tax on employers. ORS 657.505. An “employer” is “any employing unit which employs one or more individuals in an employment subject to this chapter in each of 18 separate weeks during any calendar year[.]” ORS 657.025(1). An “employing unit,” in turn, is “[a]ny individual or type of organization, including any * * * corporation * * * who has or had in its employ one or more individuals performing services for it within this state.” ORS 657.020(l)(a).

The particular rate at which an employer is taxed is calculated annually. ORS 657.405. There are essentially three different ways to calculate the tax rate. First, ORS 657.435 provides that an employer whose account has been chargeable with benefits for less than one year is to be assessed at a “base rate”:

“For each calendar year beginning after December 31, 1977, an employer’s tax rate shall be that rate assigned in this section to the applicable schedule I through VIII of Table A, ORS 657.462 in effect for such calendar year unless and until there have been 12 consecutive months immediately preceding the computation date, except as otherwise provided, throughout which the employer’s account has been chargeable with benefits.”

[296]*296(Emphasis added.) Second, ORS 657.430 provides that, after there have been 12 consecutive months of operations chargeable with benefits, the employer’s tax rate is to be determined based on “the actual experience of the employer with respect to benefits paid to unemployed individuals on account of wages for services performed in the employ of such employer during the base years of such unemployed individuals.” In other words, businesses subject to this section are charged based on their actual experience with unemployment compensation claims. Third, when an employer acquires all of another’s business and all of its incidents, the purchasing employer succeeds to the acquired business’s tax rate:

“If the organization, trade or business, including the entire employing enterprise and all its incidents for all purposes of this chapter, of any employer is by purchase or otherwise transferred to an employing unit, whether or not such acquiring employing unit was an employing unit within the meaning of ORS 657.020 prior to such acquisition, the employing unit to which the transfer is made shall assume the position of such employer with respect to such employer’s experience, payrolls and otherwise the same as if there had been no change in ownership and shall be required to assume and continue the experience of such employer pursuant to ORS 657.430 to 657.475 and 657.480 to 657.487. However, no employing unit to which the organization, trade or business of an employer has been transferred is entitled to a tax rate of less than the rate assigned an employer in accordance with ORS 657.435 unless and until such employing unit, based upon its experience and the experience of the organization, trade or business transferred, has throughout the 12 consecutive months preceding the computation date had its account chargeable with benefits.”

ORS 657.480(1).

In this case, there is no debate that petitioner is an “employer” subject to the requirement to pay the unemployment payroll tax. The sole issue in contention is which of the three foregoing methods of computing the tax rate applies. With that in mind, we turn to the facts, which are not in dispute.

[297]*297Since September 2000, Jim Mathany owned a corporation called Professional Employee Outsourcing, LLC (PEO). The company provided payroll services throughout 11 western states. It had five internal staff and was the employer of record for approximately 900 employees. The department assigned to PEO a business business identification number (BIN), 1116822-9.

In January 2001, PEO purchased a state-of-the-art integrated accounting software system, allowing it to compute payroll for its clients internally. The company encountered severe difficulties with the software, however, and, in December 2001, it suspended operations. After December 2001, PEO had no employees or payroll.

Meanwhile, Mathany learned of the availability of another company, Quest Peripherals Corporation (Quest), BIN 601061-85, an Oregon corporation with a single employee, which has been in the business of computer peripheral sales since 1997. Mathany was interested in acquiring Quest because of its favorable financial history and business relationships and its low unemployment insurance payroll tax rate. In December 2001, Mathany purchased all of Quest’s shares and its name. Mathany did not purchase Quest’s location, employee, or inventory. Nor did Mathany continue the computer peripheral sales business.

Instead, in December 2001, Mathany changed Quest’s name to All PEO, Inc. That renamed company, petitioner in this case, then acquired a license to operate as a professional employer organization in the State of Oregon, the same sort of organization that Mathany’s other business, PEO, once engaged in. In fact, as of January 1, 2002, PEO’s employees began working for petitioner and serving PEO’s Oregon clients. Petitioner did not, however, acquire any of PEO’s assets, computer system, or accounts. PEO continues to exist, but its operations remain suspended.

Mathany registered petitioner with the department on July 17, 2002. The department then assigned petitioner a new account number, BIN 1144168-3.

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Related

Jordan v. Employment Department
97 P.3d 1273 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2004)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
111 P.3d 798, 199 Or. App. 293, 2005 Ore. App. LEXIS 528, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/all-peo-inc-v-employment-department-orctapp-2005.