North Baton Rouge Dev. Co., Inc. v. Collector of Rev.

304 So. 2d 293, 1974 La. LEXIS 4524
CourtSupreme Court of Louisiana
DecidedDecember 2, 1974
Docket54835
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 304 So. 2d 293 (North Baton Rouge Dev. Co., Inc. v. Collector of Rev.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Louisiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
North Baton Rouge Dev. Co., Inc. v. Collector of Rev., 304 So. 2d 293, 1974 La. LEXIS 4524 (La. 1974).

Opinion

304 So.2d 293 (1974)

NORTH BATON ROUGE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, INC.
v.
COLLECTOR OF REVENUE, State of Louisiana, et al.

No. 54835.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

December 2, 1974.

*294 David L. Dawson, Jr., Baton Rouge, for defendant-applicant.

Arthur R. Carmody, Jr., John M. Madison, Jr., Wilkinson, Carmody & Peatross, Shreveport, for plaintiff-respondent.

DIXON, Justice.

Writs were granted in this case on the application of the Collector of Revenue from an adverse ruling by the Court of Appeal. North Baton Rouge Development Company, Inc. v. Collector of Revenue, State of Louisiana et al., 294 So.2d 571 (1974). The Court of Appeal reversed in part a decision of the district court. On an appeal to the district court by the taxpayer, the district court had affirmed a ruling of the Board of Tax Appeals, which had affirmed an additional assessment against the taxpayer by the Collector of Revenue.

The additional assessment was for corporation franchise taxes for the taxable years 1962 through 1965 under R.S. 47:601 et seq. Only the adjustment for the years 1964 and 1965 remains in dispute.

The taxpayer is a domestic corporation. Two issues are presented:

I. Is the commercial domicile of the corporation in Louisiana or Missouri? (R.S. 47:606, subd. A(1)(h);

II. Was there a proper allocation of revenues from and investments in Rice Carden Corporation, contended by the taxpayer to be a "subsidiary" of the taxpayer, and from Kansas City Southern Industries, contended by the taxpayer to be a "parent" of the taxpayer?

*295 I. Commercial Domicile.

Louisiana's corporate franchise tax law imposes an annual tax of $1.50 per thousand on a corporation's capital stock, surplus, undivided profits and borrowed capital. For the purpose of ascertaining the tax, the statutes establish a formula, and every corporation subject to the tax is deemed to have employed in Louisiana the proportion of its entire capital stock, etc., computed on the basis of a ratio obtained by taking the arithmetical average of two ratios: (1) the ratio that sales and revenue attributable to Louisiana bears to total sales and revenue; and (2) the ratio that the value of the taxpayer's property situated or used in Louisiana bears to the value of all its property wherever situated or used.

The statutes establish methods for determining each ratio. The computation of the ratio of "other revenue and dividends" attributable to Louisiana is regulated by R.S. 47:606, subd. A(1)(h) and (2)(f):

"A. General allocation formula.
"For the purpose of ascertaining the tax imposed in this Chapter, every corporation subject to the tax is deemed to have employed in this state the proportion of its entire issued and outstanding capital stock, surplus, undivided profits and borrowed capital, computed on the basis of the ratio obtained by taking the arithmetical average of the following ratios:
"(1) The ratio that the net sales made to customers in the regular course of business and other revenue attributable to Louisiana bears to the total net sales made to customers in the regular course of business and other revenue. For the purposes of this Sub-section net sales and other revenues attributable to Louisiana shall be determined as follows:
"(h) Other interest and dividends shall be attributed to the state in which the securities or credits producing such revenue have their situs, which shall be at the business situs of such securities or credits, if they have been so used in connection with the taxpayer's business as to acquire a business situs, or, in the absence of such a business situs shall be at the commercial domicile of the corporation.
"(2) The ratio that the value of all of the taxpayer's property and assets situated or used in Louisiana bears to the value of all of its property and assets wherever situated or used. In determining value, depreciation and depletion reserves must be deducted from the book values of the properties in question. The various classes of property and assets shown below shall be allocated with and without Louisiana on the bases indicated:
"(f) Stocks and bonds not included in (b) or (d) above shall be allocated to the state in which they have their business situs or in the absence of a business situs to the state in which is located the commercial domicile of the taxpayer."

The revenues involved in the case before us are the result of stock ownership by the North Baton Rouge Development Company, Inc. in foreign corporations.[1]

North Baton Rouge Development Company, Inc. was formed in 1946. Its only *296 office is in East Baton Rouge Parish. (It describes itself as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Louisiana and Arkansas Railway Company, a Delaware corporation with its principal office in Kansas City, Missouri). The L & A is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kansas City Southern Railway Company, a Missouri corporation with its principal office in Kansas City. The KCS and the L & A operate railroad lines in Louisiana and other states. The L & A accounting department was at one time in Shreveport, Louisiana.

The president of North Baton Rouge Development Company was Ernest Wilson, who lived in Baton Rouge and was a developer of real estate for warehousing. The principal asset of North Baton Rouge Development Company, Inc. was approximately 200 acres of land north of Baton Rouge. The plans were to develop the wooded land into suitable lots for industrial locations for railway industrial development purposes for the benefit of the L & A Railway. Other real estate was acquired by the taxpayer in Shreveport and Lake Charles, as well as another location in East Baton Rouge Parish. Paul Sippel of Shreveport was vice president of North Baton Rouge Development Company as well as vice president of the L & A Railway. E. A. Staman of Shreveport was secretary of the North Baton Rouge Development Company.

North Baton Rouge Development Company was not authorized to do business in any other state than Louisiana and did no business in any state other than Louisiana.

In the taxpayer's 1966 return, for the tax year 1965, the value of the real and personal property in Louisiana is listed at $714,830.00. The total capital stock, surplus, undivided profits and borrowed capital was $13,626,444.05. Slightly more than half was listed by the taxpayer as employed in Louisiana ($6,813,222.03).

Wilson was paid an undisclosed amount for his services for the taxpayer. There was only one full time employee of the taxpayer in Louisiana; he was a heavy equipment operator. Two or three other part time employees were located in Louisiana.

Until the 1960s, the only business activity of North Baton Rouge Development Company was the development of industrial sites in Louisiana. For the years 1962 through 1965 North Baton Rouge Development Company filed franchise tax returns showing its investment in and revenue from foreign corporations. This change in operations represented a policy decision by the Kansas City Railway interests to purchase securities to be held in the name of North Baton Rouge Development Company. All the decisions to purchase were made by the management of the Kansas City Southern Industries and its subsidiary companies in Kansas City. Financing was either furnished by the parent or subsidiary railroad corporations, or obtained through them.

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Bluebook (online)
304 So. 2d 293, 1974 La. LEXIS 4524, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/north-baton-rouge-dev-co-inc-v-collector-of-rev-la-1974.