J. L. Mott Corp. v. Commonwealth

316 A.2d 921, 12 Pa. Commw. 493, 1974 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 676
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 27, 1974
DocketAppeal, No. 198 Tr. Dkt. 1970
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 316 A.2d 921 (J. L. Mott Corp. v. Commonwealth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
J. L. Mott Corp. v. Commonwealth, 316 A.2d 921, 12 Pa. Commw. 493, 1974 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 676 (Pa. Ct. App. 1974).

Opinion

Opinion by

President Judge Bowman,

This is an appeal by J. L. Mott Corporation, a foreign corporate taxpayer, from the action of the Board of Finance and Revenue in refusing its petition for a resettlement of its 1962 calendar year foreign franchise tax. The parties have stipulated the facts, which we adopt as our findings of fact.

Appellant, a New Jersey corporation, was authorized to do business in Pennsylvania at all times material to this appeal. While appellant’s certificate of incorporation in New Jersey includes manufacturing as a corporate purpose, during 1962 appellant itself carried on no manufacturing operations in Pennsylvania. It did, however, own a one-third undivided interest in real estate located in Philadelphia, which consisted of a lot and building. Appellant and co-owners leased this real estate to five unrelated tenants, several of which carried on manufacturing activities in the building. Appellant employed several maintenance and custodial personnel to care for the real estate. The rental received from tenants engaged in manufacturing constituted 89.4% of the total rental, received by appellant.

The foreign franchise tax subjects foreign corporations to a tax at the rate of five mills imposed on the value of the corporation’s capital stock. Act of June 1, 1889, P. L. 429, §21 (b), as amended, 72 P.8. §1871 (b). However, the Act of 1889 exempts from the value of the corporation’s capital stock certain assets, which are actually and exclusively used in manufacturing in Pennsylvania, according to a statutorily prescribed formula of apportionment fractions (tangible property, wages and salaries, and gross receipts fractions). 72 P.S. §1871(b).

The appellant submitted its 1962 franchise tax report to the Department of Revenue, computing its fran[496]*496chise tax following the statutory formula for those taking advantage of the manufacturer’s exemption. In applying the exemption to its fractions, appellant excluded from the numerator of the tangible property fraction the value of all tangible property in Pennsylvania reported as used in manufacturing. This value was determined by taking the total value of appellant’s one-third undivided interest in the real estate located in Philadelphia and applying to it a percentage (89.4%) representing the rental value of these premises being used by appellant’s tenants for manufacturing.

Appellant also excluded from the numerator of the wages and salaries fraction the amount of compensation paid to appellant’s employees reported as engaged in manufacturing in Pennsylvania. This amount was determined by taking the total amount of compensation paid by appellant to employees in Pennsylvania and applying the same rental percentage (89.4%) to this amount.

Appellant also excluded from the numerator of the gross receipts fraction the amount of gross receipts reported to be incident or appurtenant to manufacturing in Pennsylvania. This amount was determined by taking the total amount of rent received and applying the same rental percentage (89.4%) to this amount.

Appellant’s exclusion of the value of tangible property reported as used in manufacturing from the numerator of the tangible property fraction, and the computation used to determine that value, are not disputed by the Commonwealth.

The sole issue before this Court is whether this foreign corporation is entitled by law to claim the aforementioned exclusions from the numerator of its wages and salaries fraction and from the numerator of its gross receipts fraction, respectively. Appellant claims that it is entitled to these exclusions because, as a corporation whose capital is invested in manufacturing, [497]*497it is entitled to the use of the exemption; and because it is entitled to the exemption, it is entitled to reflect the exemption in the numerators of all three fractions rather than a single exclusion from the tangible property fraction.

The Commonwealth does not dispute taxpayer’s exclusion from the tangible property fraction, because Commonwealth v. Jeca Corp., 81 Dauph. 36, 31 Pa. D. & C. 2d 759 (1963), Interpreting the Act of June 1, 1889, P. L. 420, §21 (b), as amended, 72 P.S. §1871 (b), appears to permit this exclusion, and because the Act of July 11, 1901, P. L. 668, 72 P.S. §1893, amending the aforementioned Act of 1889, also appears to permit this exclusion. Recognizing that Jeea was a capital stock tax case, in which a domestic corporation was seeking to exclude the value of capital assets which had been invested in manufacturing from the numerator of its single tangible property apportionment fraction, the taxpayer’s success in Jeca has no bearing on whether appellant should be successful in its appeal on. these novel issues. We must look to the statutory language under which appellant seeks its exemption (Section 21(b)(2) and (3) of the Act of 1889, 72 P.S. §1871 (b) (2) and (3)) to resolve these issues.

The first question is, are appellant’s expenditures for wages, salaries, commissions, or other compensation, which, it proposes to exclude, paid to employees who are “exclusively engaged in manufacturing” in this Commonwealth? Notwithstanding the Commonwealth’s concession, dictated by Jeca and the Act of 1901, that appellant’s real estate is tangible property actually and exclusively used in manufacturing, this Court is convinced that appellant’s franchise in Pennsylvania relates only to the real estate market, and that its employees comprise only a maintenance crew for that real estate; they are not employees exclusively engaged in manufacturing. It is the appellant who carries the [498]*498burden to prove it is entitled to the claimed exemption, and appellant has made no effort to show how its employees are “exclusively engaged in manufacturing.” The record, to the contrary, shows that appellant is a supplier and maintainer of real estate, and that its market is not in manufactured products.

Appellant has asserted that if it were manufacturing the products that its tenants are manufacturing, the wages paid by it to its employees in Pennsylvania who cared for the plant would be eligible for the exemption. However, our Supreme Court has recognized that there are instances “where corporations have been denied the manufacturing exemption even though the same assets, in the hands of a manufacturer, would have been exempt.” Commonwealth v. Weldon Pajamas, Inc., 432 Pa. 481, 487, 248 A. 2d 204, 207 (1968). See also Hazen Engineering Co. v. City of Pittsburgh, 189 Pa. Superior Ct. 531, 540, 151 A. 2d 855, 859 (1959). This is one of those instances. We believe that the legislative intent of exempting the value of wages paid to “exclusively manufacturing” employees from the numerator of the wages and salaries fraction is hardly met by the appellant’s practice of excluding an amount which represents nothing more than a percentage of all compensation paid to its custodial crew, especially where the percentage is determined by a fraction whose numerator is the rental income received from tenants engaged in manufacturing and whose denominator is total rental income received from all tenants. Appellant’s proposed exclusion, and its computation thereof, bear no significant relationship to the statutory language.

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Related

Commonwealth v. After Six, Inc.
382 A.2d 983 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1978)
Commonwealth v. J. L. Mott Corp.
345 A.2d 650 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1975)

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Bluebook (online)
316 A.2d 921, 12 Pa. Commw. 493, 1974 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 676, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/j-l-mott-corp-v-commonwealth-pacommwct-1974.