Lockheed Martin Corp. v. State Department of Revenue

210 So. 3d 1123, 2016 WL 3031764, 2016 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 139
CourtCourt of Civil Appeals of Alabama
DecidedMay 27, 2016
Docket2141074
StatusPublished

This text of 210 So. 3d 1123 (Lockheed Martin Corp. v. State Department of Revenue) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lockheed Martin Corp. v. State Department of Revenue, 210 So. 3d 1123, 2016 WL 3031764, 2016 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 139 (Ala. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

MOORE, Judge.

Lockheed Martin Corporation (“Lockheed”) appeals from a judgment of the Montgomery Circuit Court (“the trial court”) in favor of the State Department of Revenue (“the Department”). We dismiss the appeal in part and affirm the judgment in part.

Procedural Background

In 1998 and 1999, Lockheed paid Alabama franchise taxes as a foreign corporation under former § 40-14-41, Ala.Code 1975. On March 23, 1999, the United States Supreme Court issued its opinion in South Central Bell Telephone Co. v. Alabama, 526 U.S. 160, 119 S.Ct. 1180, 143 L.Ed.2d 258 (1999) (“South Central Bell I”), in which it held the franchise tax established in former § 40-14-41 to be unconstitutional. Based on that holding, Lockheed petitioned the Department for a refund of the franchise taxes it had paid for tax years 1998 and 1999.1 The Department did not act on those petitions within six months, so they were denied by opera[1125]*1125tion of law. See § 40-2A-7(c)(3), Ala.Code 1975. Lockheed subsequently appealed to the trial court in 2001. On August 18, 2015, the trial court entered a judgment denying Lockheed’s refund claims asserted on appeal.2 Lockheed timely appealed to this court.

Analysis

I. Historical Background

Before the enactment of the Alabama Business Privilege Tax Act of 1999, § 40-14A-1 et seq., Ala.Code 1975, Alabama law imposed different franchise taxes on domestic and foreign corporations. Former § 40-14-40, Ala.Code 1975, required corporations organized and existing under Alabama law to pay tax in amount equal to 1% of the par value of the capital stock of the corporation, subject to a $50 minimum tax. “Par value” is the dollar value shown on the face of the shares of stock in a corporation, which may be arbitrarily set by the corporation. See, e.g., Black’s Law Dictionary 1298 (10th ed.2014). Alabama law did not prohibit a domestic corporation from setting the par value of its stock at a level far below its book or market value for franchise-tax purposes. As a result, a domestic corporation could reduce its franchise-tax liability by reducing the par value of its capital stock. On the other hand, former § 40-14-41(a) required corporations from outside Alabama to pay 0.3% of the value of “the actual amount of its capital employed” in Alabama, as “capital” was explicitly defined in former § 40-14-41(b). Consequently, the Alabama tax scheme denied foreign corporations the ability to control their tax base in the same way as domestic corporations.

In South Central Bell I, supra, the United States Supreme Court determined that the Alabama franchise-tax scheme “facially discriminates against interstate commerce” because “Alabama law gives domestic corporations the ability to reduce their franchise tax liability simply by reducing the par value of their stock, while it denies foreign corporations that same ability.” 3 526 U.S. at 169. The Court determined that Alabama’s franchise-tax scheme imposed an unequal tax burden on foreign corporations, citing undisputed evidence in the record indicating that “the average domestic corporation pays only one-fifth the franchise tax it would pay if it were treated as a foreign corporation.” Id. The Court remanded the case to the Alabama Supreme Court “for further proceedings not inconsistent with th[e Supreme Court’s] opinion.” 526 U.S. at 171.

On remand, the Alabama Supreme Court held that the United States Su[1126]*1126preme Court had intended for its decision declaring the Alabama franchise-tax scheme unconstitutional to be applied retroactively, leaving the question “remaining ... what remedy, if any, should be fashioned” in order to afford the taxpaying foreign corporations due process. South Cent. Bell Tel. Co. v. State, 789 So.2d 147, 148 (Ala.2000) (“South Central Bell II”). In Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Ry. v. O’Connor, 223 U.S. 280, 285, 32 S.Ct. 216, 56 L.Ed. 436 (1912), the United States Supreme Court held that due process requires that a state provide a taxpayer who has paid a tax under protest as to its legality a “clear and certain remedy.” In McKesson Corp. v. Division of Alcoholic Beverages & Tobacco, Department of Business Regulation of Florida, 496 U.S. 18, 110 S.Ct. 2238, 110 L.Ed.2d 17 (1990), the United States Supreme Court determined that, when a tax statute unconstitutionally discriminates against interstate commerce, a state has certain flexibility in remedying that discrimination against interstate commerce, which our supreme court summarized as giving the state the alternative of:

“1) giving a taxpayer a refund;
“2) collecting back taxes from the favored class;
“3) combining aspects of these first two options;
“4) barring a refund to a taxpayer that did not follow a state procedural law in seeking the refund; or
“5) refusing to give a remedy, in the rare case in which the State relied on now overturned precedent and the State now faces an extreme hardship if it must give a remedy.”

South Central Bell II, 789 So.2d at 148-49 (footnotes omitted). As to the first option, the Supreme Court concluded in McKes-son that a state could voluntarily pay a full refund, but, it said, the state could also retain that portion of the tax paid that would be valid under the Commerce Clause “by refunding to petitioner the difference between the tax it paid and the tax it would have been assessed were it extended the same rate reductions that its [domestic] competitors actually received.” 496 U.S. at 40. However, determining that there was an incomplete record, our supreme court did not decide which remedy Alabama would employ.4

While the South Central Bell cases wound through the appellate-court system, Gladwin Corporation, a foreign corporation, and Arizona Chemical Company, another foreign corporation, filed a class-action lawsuit in the Montgomery Circuit Court to obtain refunds for the franchise taxes that they, and 18,000 other similarly situated foreign corporations, had paid to the state. Cynthia Underwood, who was at that time the commissioner of the Department, appealed from the class-certification order, arguing that the taxpayers in the class had failed to invoke the jurisdiction of the circuit court because they had not followed the administrative procedures to assert a refund petition set forth in the Alabama Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights and Uniform Revenue Procedures Act (“the TBOR”), § 40-2A-1 et seq., Ala.Code 1975. Our supreme court held that the foreign corporations could not maintain a direct action against the state because of sovereign immunity but that the taxpayers must strictly comply with the TBOR in [1127]*1127order to prosecute their claim for a refund. Patterson v. Gladwin Corp., 835 So.2d 137, 140 (Ala.2002).

In Ex parte Surtees,

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Bluebook (online)
210 So. 3d 1123, 2016 WL 3031764, 2016 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 139, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lockheed-martin-corp-v-state-department-of-revenue-alacivapp-2016.