General Electric Co. v. United States

87 Fed. Cl. 221, 103 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 858, 2009 U.S. Claims LEXIS 57, 2009 WL 641219
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedFebruary 13, 2009
DocketNo. 06-489T
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 87 Fed. Cl. 221 (General Electric 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
General Electric Co. v. United States, 87 Fed. Cl. 221, 103 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 858, 2009 U.S. Claims LEXIS 57, 2009 WL 641219 (uscfc 2009).

Opinion

OPINION

BRUGGINK, Judge.

Pending in this tax case is defendant’s motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Rules of the Court of Federal Claims (“RCFC”).1 The case poses a novel question concerning the interplay between the Internal Revenue Service’s authority to credit a tax overpayment against an outstanding tax liability under 26 U.S.C. § 6402(a) (2000) and provisions regarding the application of interest netting contained in 26 U.S.C. § 6621(d).2

The motion has been fully briefed. In addition to regular briefing, the parties were ordered to file a joint demonstrative that was intended to explain certain interest calculations involved in the case. On October 3, 2008, the parties filed the joint demonstrative, which was composed of eight charts. The parties were able to agree that Charts 1 through 5 accurately depicted the proper computation of interest in the hypothetical situations depicted, although they did not agree that all of the principles of interest computation contained in the charts are relevant to the determination of the case. Charts 6 through 8, however, were submitted solely by plaintiff and not agreed to by defendant.

On November 17, 2008, the court heard oral argument solely with respect to the joint demonstrative. At oral argument, plaintiff was directed to file a supplemental demonstrative explaining plaintiffs view of certain interest calculations. This supplemental demonstrative was filed on December 2, 2008. Charts 1-5 and 6A and 8A from the two demonstratives are attached as Appendix A. [223]*223A second oral argument was held on February 4, 2009 addressing the merits of the defendant’s motion. Accordingly, the case is now ready for disposition. For the reasons set out below, we grant defendant’s motion.

BACKGROUND3

In April of 1992, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue (“Commissioner”) mailed a statutory notice of deficiency to General Electric Company (“GE”) regarding its corporate income tax for the 1979 taxable year. GE subsequently disputed this deficiency by filing a petition for a redetermination with the United States Tax Court.

In September 1999, the tax Court entered a decision determining that GE had an overpayment for the 1979 tax able year in the amount of $37,170,101, exclusive of interest. At the same time, however, GE and the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) reached an agreement that GE was also liable for deficiencies of its corporate income tax for the years 1986 and 1987 in the amounts of $70,617,583 and $401,813,144 respectively. This agreement was memorialized by execution of a Form 870-AD, “Offer to Waive Restrictions on Assessment and Collection of tax Deficiency and to Accept Overassessment.”

Also in October 1999, cash bonds which had been posted in 1987 and 1991 in order to stop the running of interest on the underpayments for 1986 and 1987 were converted into payments of tax and interest for the 1986 and 1987 underpayments. On December 21, 1999, GE filed Form 843 requesting that, under Section 6621(d) and Section 3301(c)(2) of the Internal Revenue Sei’vice Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, Pub.L. No. 105-206, § 3301(a), 112 Stat. 685, 741, interest netting be applied to periods of overlapping-overpayments and underpayments, ineluding between March 15, 1987 and February 22, 1991 and between March 15,1988 and February 22,1991.

In July 2000, the IRS performed interest computations reflecting its intended final resolution of GE’s overpayments and underpayments for the various years in question. Pursuant to these computations, the IRS would post an abatement to plaintiffs income tax account for 1979 in the amount of the tax overpayment that had been determined by the tax Court, $37,170,101. In addition, $3,772,301 in deficiency interest that had previously been assessed would be posted as an abatement to the 1979 account, along with overpayment interest in the amount of $43,993,361. These abatements and credits to the 1979 account resulted in an overpayment for 1979 in the total amount of $84,935,763. In August of 2000, these abate-ments and credits were actually posted. The result was that the overpayments were credited to GE’s 1986 and 1987 accounts in partial satisfaction of the tax underpayments for these taxable years: $32,267,222 was applied to the 1986 account and $52,668,541 was applied to the 1987 account.

Plaintiff claims that the IRS’s crediting of the 1979 overpayment, including interest, against plaintiffs income tax liability for the 1986 and 1987 taxable years was “null, void and ineffective.” (Complaint ¶ 29.) Therefore, because the 1979 overpayment was improperly credited to the 1986 and 1987 tax accounts, plaintiff argues that it is entitled to a refund of overpayment for the 1979 taxable year in the amount of $37,170,101 plus statutory interest.4 If the court grants defendant’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, the entire complaint fails.

DISCUSSION

Defendant argues that it credited GE’s 1979 overpayment against GE’s 1986 and 1987 underpayments under the authority provided by Section 6402(a). Section 6402(a) [224]*224gives the Commissioner discretion to credit a taxpayer’s overpayment of tax against that same taxpayer’s outstanding underpayment of tax:

In the case of any overpayment, the Secretary, within the applicable period of limitations, may credit the amount of such overpayment, including any interest allowed thereon, against any liability in respect of an internal revenue tax on the part of the person who made the overpayment and shall, subject to subsections (c), (d) and (e), refund any balance to such person.

Section 6402(a). The credit is therefore, dollar for dollar, the equivalent of a payment of a tax liability by the taxpayer. Neither the taxpayer nor the IRS are left owing anything to the other, at least to the extent of exact overlap. Chart 2 of the joint demonstrative illustrates the effect of crediting in a hypothetical scenario approximating the facts of this ease. After a final determination of the overpayment amount owed to the taxpayer and the underpayment amount owed to the IRS, the IRS applies, or credits, the taxpayer’s overpayment against the contemporaneous and equivalent underpayment, resulting in the elimination of the balance in both accounts and retroactively eliminating the subsequent interest for both the overpayment and the underpayment during the period of what had been an overlap.

The second IRC provision implicated in this case, Section 6621(d), institutes a net interest rate of zero on a taxpayer’s simultaneous overpayments and undei'payments. This is advantageous because, under the IRC, corporate taxpayers are assessed a higher interest rate on their tax underpayments than the interest rate they earn on their tax overpayments. Sections 6621(a)(2), 6621(c). Section 6621(d) reads:

To the extent that, for any period, interest is payable under subchapter A and allowable under subchapter B on equivalent underpayments and overpayments by the same taxpayer of tax imposed by this title, the net rate of interest under this section on such amounts shall be zero for such period.

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Bluebook (online)
87 Fed. Cl. 221, 103 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 858, 2009 U.S. Claims LEXIS 57, 2009 WL 641219, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/general-electric-co-v-united-states-uscfc-2009.