Commonwealth v. Sherwin Equipment, Inc.

49 Pa. D. & C.2d 735, 1970 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 478
CourtPennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Dauphin County
DecidedMay 26, 1970
Docketno. 237
StatusPublished

This text of 49 Pa. D. & C.2d 735 (Commonwealth v. Sherwin Equipment, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, Dauphin County primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Commonwealth v. Sherwin Equipment, Inc., 49 Pa. D. & C.2d 735, 1970 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 478 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1970).

Opinion

LIPSITT, J.,

This proceeding is an appeal by Sherwin Equipment, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as “appellant”) from an order by the Board of Finance and Revenue of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sustaining a tax settlement by the Department of Revenue. The case was tried before this court on stipulated facts, trial by jury having been waived pursuant to the Act of April 22, 1874, P. L. 109, sec. 1, 12 PS §688.

Appellant is a Pennsylvania corporation with its principal office at New Castle, Pa. On February 15, 1960, it entered into an arrangement entitled “Joint Venture Agreement” with Mesaba Service & Equipment Company, a Minnesota corporation. The agreement provides, inter alia:

“The purpose of the joint venture shall be to buy and to sell or lease, from time to time, such types of vehicles, equipment, machinery, materials and supplies as the parties may determine, and to effectuate such purpose it is contemplated that the parties shall mortgage, pledge or assign any or all of such property and any other property which may be owned by the respective parties and utilized by them or either of them in connection with the activities of this joint venture.”

[737]*737The agreement was for a term of three years, was subject to earlier termination at the election of either party, and contained no provision for renewal. The name designated for the joint enterprise was “Mesaba Equipment Account,” and at the time of its formation there were available substantial quantities of used mining machinery and equipment in the Mesaba Range iron ore fields in Minnesota.

During the fiscal year ending March 31, 1961, appellant bought and sold equipment for its own account as well as the aforementioned account from its New Castle, Pennsylvania, office. The activities of the conjunctive endeavor were conducted from offices of the joint enterprise maintained in Hibbing, Minnesota, Plainfield, Indiana, and New Castle, Pa. Machinery and equipment were purchased by employes of the conjoined business assigned to these three offices. Any repairs prior to resale were made at shops in Hibbing, Minnesota. Expenses of the three offices were borne equally by the parties. All purchases of machinery and equipment for the account in question were paid for with checks drawn upon bank accounts in the name of the joint enterprise maintained in Hibbing, Minnesota.

All inventories of the joint business were located outside Pennsylvania. Appellant had no inventories for its own account. As a result of appellant’s activities and ownership of property in Minnesota, as a member of the joint enterprise, appellant was required by Minnesota law to secure a certificate of authority as a foreign corporation and was assessed Minnesota State Income Tax for the fiscal year in question.

Under the Corporate Net Income Tax Act, Act of May 16, 1935, P. L. 208, sec. 2, as amended, 72 PS §3420b, a formula is set forth with fractions representing gross receipts, tangible property and wages [738]*738and salaries, enabling the apportionment of income of a corporation for tax purposes where it is doing business in more than one State so that the tax may be based on that portion of the income allocable to Pennsylvania. The position of the Commonwealth in this action is that the arrangement in which the appellant was engaged with the Mesaba Service & Equipment Company was one of partnership. If it is a partnership, the reasoning is that appellant would not be entitled to the appropriate fractions, because partnership assets are intangible; thus appellant’s interest in its entirety would be assigned to Pennsylvania because of the rule of domiciliary situs.

Appellant in filing its tax report included the income of the joint enterprise in its tax base. However, because it claims a joint venture existed rather than a partnership, it then applied the allocation fractions of the Act assigning outside of Pennsylvania the tangible property located in Minnesota, the wages and salaries paid to employes of the joint enterprise in offices outside of Pennsylvania and the gross receipts of the joint enterprise.

The Commonwealth on settling the tax against the appellant refused to allow the use of allocation fractions. Accordingly, all of the income earned was subject to the Pennsylvania Corporate Net Income Tax.

The determinating question as posed by both parties is whether the business arrangement between appellant and the Mesaba Service & Equipment Company, known as the “Mesaba Equipment Account” was a joint venture or a partnership relationship.

As a general rule, a State may impose a property tax or an excise tax for the privilege of doing business on assets that have acquired a placement within its territory. Assets located outside of the State may not be subject to that State’s taxation: Pullman’s Palace Car Company v. Pennsylvania, 141 U.S. 18 (1891); [739]*739Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company v. Pennsylvania, 198 U.S. 341 (1905). This rule is based upon the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which prohibits the taking of property without due process of law.

Tangible property has as its taxable situs the State in which it is located: Commonwealth v. Amer. Dredging Co., 122 Pa. 386 (1888). Intangible property on the other hand has a situs in the State in which the owner is domiciled: Commonwealth v. Pennsylvania Coal Company, 197 Pa. 551 (1901). And a corporation has its domicile in the State of incorporation: Commonwealth v. Universal Trades, 392 Pa. 323 (1958), appeal dismissed 358 U.S. 129 (1958), rehearing denied 358 U.S. 938 (1959).

If the enterprise here is held to be a “joint venture,” the property owned by the domestic corporate joint venturer is considered to be tangible, and possesses a taxable situs in the state in which it is located, hence appellant would be entitled to make an allocation. On the other hand, if it is a partnership, the partnership interest in appellant’s hands is intangible and the taxable situs is Pennsylvania.

The problem in this case is complicated by the lack of decisional law distinguishing joint venture and partnerships. Perhaps the reason is that the nature of the two are very similar and in most situations the issue before a court is whether a business arrangement is a partnership and/or joint venture as opposed to some other type of business enterprise. This perplexity in classifying a business relation as either a joint venture or a partnership is reflected in the following comment from Corpus Juris Secundum in its article on joint ventures, 48 C.J.S. Joint Adventures, page 806, §1:

“At common law an enterprise of a limited character, such as is now called a joint adventure, was re[740]*740garded in law as merely an informal kind of partnership, and the courts made no attempt to distinguish the one from the other. However, the courts, about the middle of the last century, began to find it convenient to draw a distinction between them, and hence there is gradually building up a body of American law applicable to the relation of joint adventures which may or may not apply to the relation of partners.

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Related

Pullman's Palace Car Co. v. Pennsylvania
141 U.S. 18 (Supreme Court, 1891)
McRoberts v. Phelps
138 A.2d 439 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1958)
Klaber v. Klaber
133 So. 2d 98 (District Court of Appeal of Florida, 1961)
Commonwealth v. Universal Trades
141 A.2d 204 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1958)
Tax Review Board v. Green
409 Pa. 448 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1963)
Bell v. Johnston
126 A. 187 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1924)
Nolan v. J. & M. Doyle Co.
13 A.2d 59 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1940)
Commonwealth v. Amer. Dredging Co.
15 A. 443 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1888)
Commonwealth v. Pennsylvania Coal Co.
47 A. 740 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1901)
West v. Peoples First National Bank & Trust Co.
106 A.2d 427 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1954)
Universal Trades, Inc. v. Pennsylvania
358 U.S. 129 (Supreme Court, 1958)

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Bluebook (online)
49 Pa. D. & C.2d 735, 1970 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 478, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-sherwin-equipment-inc-pactcompldauphi-1970.