Nextel Communications of the Mid-Atlantic, Inc. v. Commonwealth of PA

129 A.3d 1, 2015 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 520, 2015 WL 7430543
CourtCommonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedNovember 23, 2015
Docket98 F.R. 2012
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 129 A.3d 1 (Nextel Communications of the Mid-Atlantic, Inc. v. Commonwealth of PA) 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
Nextel Communications of the Mid-Atlantic, Inc. v. Commonwealth of PA, 129 A.3d 1, 2015 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 520, 2015 WL 7430543 (Pa. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinions

OPINION BY

Judge P. KEVIN BROBSON.

In this appeal from the Board of Finance and Revenue (Board), Petitioner Nextel Communications of the Mid-Atlantic, Inc. (Nextel) challenges the Board’s denial of its petition for refund of corporate net- income! (CNI)-tax paid to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the tax year ending December 31, 2007 (2007 Tax Year)., In pursuing its refund, Nextel contends that the met loss carryover deduction (NLC deduction) provision in Section 401(3)4.(c)(l)(A)(II) of the Tax Reform Code of 1971 (Tax Reform Code),1 as applied ■ to Nextel,2 violates the uniformity requirement (Article VIII, Section 1) of the Pennsylvania Constitution (Uniformity Clause). For the reasons set forth below, we find in favor of Nextel, reverse the Board’s Order, and grant relief to Nextel.

The NLC deduction provision of the Tax Reform Code allows a taxpayer to reduce its positive taxable income in a particular tax year by deducting prior year net losses (ie., where the taxpayer had negative taxable income in a prior year), thereby reducing the amount of CNI tax due and payable in that tax year. Net losses from prior tax years may be carried over to subsequent tax years and. applied to reduce taxable income according to a schedule set forth in Section 401(3)4.(c)(2) of the Tax Reform Code, 72 P.S. § 7401(3)4.(c)(2). For example, a net loss in taxable years 1995 through 1997 may be carried over for ten taxable years. A net loss in taxable years 1998 and thereafter may be carried over for twenty taxable years. . In addition to limiting how long á taxpayer may carry over its net losses, the Tax Reform Code also limits the amount of the NLC deduction that a taxpayer may take in any. given tax year. For the 2007 Tax Year, the amount of the NLC deduction was limited to the greater of 12.5% of the taxpayer’s taxable income or $3 million. Section 401(3)4.(c)(l)(A)(II) of the Tax Reform Code.

Nextel is a telecommunications company that does business in multiple states, including Pennsylvania. Our inquiry is [4]*4confined to Nextel’s income and losses relating to its Pennsylvania business. According to the parties’ Stipulation of Facts, Nextel carried over net losses of $150 million into the 2007 Tax Year.3 Nex-tel earned $45 million of taxable income during the 2007 Tax Year. Accordingly, Nextel’s available net loss carryover in 2007 well exceeded its 2007 taxable income.- Consistent with the NLC deduction provision of the Tax Reform ■ Code that limits the amount of the NLC deduction that a taxpayer may take in the 2007 Tax Year, Nextel reported for the 2007 Tax Year its full $45 million in taxable income to the Commonwealth, but it took only a $5.6 million NLC deduction (the greater of 12.5% of its taxable income or $3 million). As a result, Nextel reduced its taxable income for the 2007 Tax Year to $39.4 million and paid CNI tax of $4 million on that amount.4

Nextel filed a timely petition for refund of CNI tax paid in the 2007 Tax Year, in which it argued, inter alia, that the NLC deduction cap of the greater of 12.5% of taxable income or $3 million was unconstitutional. The Department of Revenue Board of Appeals (Revenue) and the Board held that they lacked the authority to consider and rule on Nextel’s constitutional challenge. They both concluded that Nex-tel properly applied the NLC deduction provision as written when it filed its tax report and paid its taxes for the 2007 Tax Year. Accordingly, Revenue denied Nex-tel’s request for a refund, and the Board affirmed.

The Uniformity Clause provides: “All taxes shall be uniform, upon the same class of subjects, within the territorial limits of the authority levying the tax....” Nextel contends that the limitations on the NLC deduction favor businesses with taxable income of $3 million or less. Assuming these taxpayers have a net loss carryover in excess of their taxable income in a particular year — i.e., a positive net loss carryover position — these taxpayers can reduce their taxable income to $0, By contrast, any taxpayer that has taxable income in excess of $3 million in a tax year, who is also in a positive net loss carryover position, is precluded from reducing its taxable income to $0. That taxpayer will always have to pay CNI tax, even if its net loss carryover exceeds its taxable income that year.

According to Nextel and the parties’ Stipulation of Facts,5 this actually occurred in 2007. In the 2007 Tax Year, 19,537 taxpayers subject to the CNI tax were in a positive net loss carryover position — ie., the amount of their net loss carryovers exceeded the amount of taxable income apportioned to Pennsylvania for the 2007 Tax Year. Of those 19,537 taxpayers, 19,-303 (98.8%) were able to completely offset their taxable income through the NLC deduction provision. These particular taxpayers had taxable income at or below $3 million. Because the 2007 Tax Year NLC deduction was limited to the greater of 12.5% of taxable income or $3 million, these taxpayers, using the $3 million cap, were able to avoid paying any CNI tax for the 2007 Tax Year.

The other 1.2%, or 234 taxpayers, in a positive net loss carryover position in the 2007 Tax Year, paid some CNI tax that tax year. They had taxable income in excess of $3 million. Indeed, the majority of the [5]*5234 taxpayers had taxable income in excess of $6 million. Because of the limitations placed on the NLC deduction that year, these taxpayers could not reduce their taxable income to $0. A taxpayer in a positive net loss carryover position in 2007 with $3,000,001 in taxable income in the 2007 Tax Year would have paid $0.10 in CNI tax. But a similarly-situated taxpayer in the 2007 Tax Year with one dollar less in taxable income would have owed no CNI tax under the NLC deduction provision. For taxpayers with- substantially more taxable income in the 2007 Tax Year, the tax consequences were more severe. Nextel was among twenty-six taxpayers whose taxable income in 2007 exceeded $24 million. At most, these taxpayers could only reduce their taxable income by 12.5% under the NLC deduction limitations.

Nextel maintains that this disparate treatment of taxpayers, based solely on the size of the business in terms of taxable income in the 2007 Tax Year, violates the Uniformity Clause. In Nextel’s view, the NLC deduction limitations work in favor of small taxpayers in a positive net loss carryover position and against similarly-situated larger taxpayers. The larger the taxpayer (ie., the greater the income), the more disparate the impact. Accordingly, Nextel argues that the NLC deduction limitations create an unconstitutional progressive CNI tax structure, where small taxpayers pay a lower effective tax rate than larger, similarly-situated, taxpayers, even though the statutory rate is fixed at 9.99%.6

In response, the Commonwealth contends that there is no Uniformity Clause violation, because the same statutory rate of 9.99% is applied to the same base in every case (taxable income less NLC deduction). Similarly, 'because the same statutory rate is applied’ against the same tax base for every taxpayer, the Commonwealth argues that we must reject Nextel’s characterization of the CNI tax as unconstitutionally progressive. The Commonwealth also argües that we must reject Nextel’s contention that the Uniformity Clause demands- that all taxpayers pay the same effective tax rate, because Pennsylvania courts have consistently rejected such uniformity challenges to the CNI tax-.

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Bluebook (online)
129 A.3d 1, 2015 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 520, 2015 WL 7430543, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/nextel-communications-of-the-mid-atlantic-inc-v-commonwealth-of-pa-pacommwct-2015.