Florida Power & Light Co. v. United States

56 Fed. Cl. 328, 91 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 2114, 2003 U.S. Claims LEXIS 103, 2003 WL 21077039
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedApril 29, 2003
DocketNo. 99-258T
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 56 Fed. Cl. 328 (Florida Power & Light Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Federal Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Florida Power & Light Co. v. United States, 56 Fed. Cl. 328, 91 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 2114, 2003 U.S. Claims LEXIS 103, 2003 WL 21077039 (uscfc 2003).

Opinion

OPINION

WIESE, Judge.

Section 4481(a) of the Tax Code imposes a tax, at specified rates, “on the use of any highway motor vehicle ... [that] has a taxable gross weight of at least 55,000 pounds.” I.R.C. § 4481(a).1 In the implementation of this statute, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) has issued regulations that exempt from the application of this tax certain specially designed vehicles intended for non-highway transportation functions. This tax refund suit presents three questions concerning the application of these regulations: (i) whether the vehicles at issue satisfy the criteria for exemption; (ii) whether plaintiff alternatively is entitled to the benefit of the exemption on the basis of equality of treatment among similarly situated taxpayers; and (iii) whether plaintiff may assert, as a basis for refund, that its vehicles fall below the taxable weight threshold.

This action is now before the court on defendant’s motion for partial summary judgment with respect to questions (i) and (ii), defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction with respect to question (iii), and plaintiffs cross-motion for summary judgment. For the reasons set forth below, defendant’s motions are granted and plaintiffs cross-motion for summary judgment is denied.

FACTS

Plaintiff, Florida Power & Light Company (“FPL”), is an electric utility company doing business in the state of Florida. In conducting its business, FPL uses various types of specially designed trucks that are essential to the operation and maintenance of the company’s power distribution system.2 The chassis of these trucks, as supplied by the original manufacturer, included certain nonstandard features, such as reinforced frames and increased engine power. In addition, the chassis were further modified by equipment manufacturers, in accordance with detailed specifications prepared by plaintiff, to [330]*330accommodate the permanent mounting of the vehicle’s work-performing equipment and to permit the use of that mounted equipment in the field. Pursuant to the specifications, virtually all of the vehicles at issue also were equipped with a pintle-type trailer hitch (“pintle hook”) and a trailer towing package. With the addition of the pintle hook, the vehicles, depending upon their gross combined weight ratings, have towing capacities ranging from 6,000 to 20,000 pounds.

With respect to these specially designed vehicles, FPL filed Heavy Vehicle Use Tax Returns, Forms 2290, for the annual periods beginning July 1, 1992, through June 30, 1993, and July 1, 1993, through June 30, 1994. Following the payment of these taxes,3 plaintiff filed a Claim for Refund of Excise Taxes, Form 8849, on June 24, 1995, requesting a refund of those payments. The refund amounts sought, as subsequently adjusted by the IRS, totaled $104,091 for 1993 and $100,936 for 1994. As the basis for its claim, plaintiff stated that the Heavy Vehicle Use Tax Returns filed for the years at issue “incorrectly included vehicles which do not meet the definition of a ‘highway use’ vehicle.”

On February 26, 1997, the IRS notified plaintiff that it intended to disallow the claim for refund. In explaining its decision, the IRS acknowledged that the trucks at issue each contained a chassis that included permanently mounted machinery and equipment used in plaintiff’s business, a qualification set forth in the relevant IRS regulation for exception from the definition of a highway use vehicle. But the IRS noted that the trucks were also equipped with pintle hooks which permitted the trucks to tow trailers and thus to haul loads other than or in addition to the permanently mounted machinery and equipment, a function, the IRS explained, that disqualified plaintiffs trucks from treatment as non-highway vehicles.

Plaintiff challenged the proposed disallowance of its refund claim, arguing that the transportation characteristics of its trucks should be determined on the basis of the machinery and equipment that the vehicles were specifically designed to haul and not by the incidental hauling capacity attributable to their pintle hooks. On August 28,1998, however, the IRS issued a notice by certified mail disallowing plaintiffs refund claim. Thereafter, plaintiff filed suit in this court.

DISCUSSION

I.

Section 4481(a) of-the Tax Code provides: “A tax is hereby imposed on the use of any highway motor vehicle ... [that] has a taxable gross weight of at least 55,000 pounds ----” I.R.C. § 4481(a). The regulations implementing this statute provide that “the term ‘highway vehicle’ means any self-propelled vehicle, or any trailer or semitrailer, designed to perform a function of transporting a load over public highways, whether or not also designed to perform other functions, but does not include a vehicle described in (d)(2) of this section.” Treas. Reg. § 48.4061(a)-l(d)(l) (2002). Subsection (d)(2) excepts three classes of vehicles from this definition, two of which are at issue here — the “mobile machinery” exception and the “offhighway transportation” exception. We examine each below.

A.

Section 48.4061(a)-l(d)(2)(i), referred to more generally as the mobile machinery exception, sets out three conjunctive requirements for exception from the definition of a highway vehicle:

A self-propelled vehicle, or trailer or semitrailer, is not a highway vehicle if it (A) consists of a chassis to which there has been permanently mounted (by welding, bolting, riveting, or other means) machinery or equipment to perform a construction, manufacturing, processing, farming, mining, drilling, timbering, or operation similar to any one of the foregoing enu[331]*331merated operations if the operation of the machinery or equipment is unrelated to transportation on or off the public highways, (B) the chassis has been specially designed to serve only as a mobile carriage and mount (and a power source, where applicable) for the particular machinery or equipment involved, whether or not such machinery or equipment is in operation, and (C) by reason of such special design, such chassis could not, without substantial structural modification, be used as a component of a vehicle designed to perform a function of transporting any load other than that particular machinery or equipment or similar machinery or equipment requiring such a specially designed chassis.

The dispute in this case focuses on clause B, the second listed requirement. Specifically, the question is whether the addition of a pintle hook, and the supplementary hauling capacity thereby added to plaintiffs vehicles, precludes a finding that the vehicles’ chassis have “been specially designed to serve only as a mobile carriage and mount ... for the particular machinery or equipment involved” (emphasis added).

Plaintiff maintains that its vehicles satisfy the design capability requirement set out in clause B. To support its position, plaintiff has provided the affidavits of Michael D. Paulson, FPL’s supervisor of technical operations and the individual responsible for the design of the company’s mobile equipment, and Daryl L. Heronemus, a design engineer and currently the operations manager of Altec Industries, Inc., a company that manufactures and assembles mobile equipment used by FPL and other public utility companies.

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56 Fed. Cl. 328, 91 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 2114, 2003 U.S. Claims LEXIS 103, 2003 WL 21077039, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/florida-power-light-co-v-united-states-uscfc-2003.