People ex rel. Central Hudson Gas & Electric Co. v. State Tax Commission

218 A.D. 44, 217 N.Y.S. 707, 1926 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5858
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedSeptember 23, 1926
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 218 A.D. 44 (People ex rel. Central Hudson Gas & Electric Co. v. State Tax Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People ex rel. Central Hudson Gas & Electric Co. v. State Tax Commission, 218 A.D. 44, 217 N.Y.S. 707, 1926 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5858 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1926).

Opinion

Hinman, J.

“ The net earnings rule contemplates a valuation upon the basis of the net earnings of the corporation which are attributable to its enjoyment of the special franchise. The method is thus applied: (1) Ascertain the gross earnings. (2) Deduct the operating expenses. (3) Deduct a fair and reasonable return on that portion of the capital of the corporation which is invested in tangible property. The resulting balance gives the earnings attributable to the special franchise. If this balance be capitalized at a fair rate we have the value of the special franchise.” (People ex rel. Jamaica Water Supply Co. v. Tax Commissioners, 196 N. Y. 39, 56.) The matters of difference in the case at bar will be presented in the above general order.

(1) Gross earnings. ■ The referee and both parties agree upon the figure representing gross receipts from operations in the manufacture and sale of gas, electricity and steam, except that the referee adopted the contention of the relator that its receipts for merchandise and jobbing and rent of appliances and sales of residuals should not be included. The respondent contends that these receipts should have been included. In similar appeal involving the valuation of relator’s special franchise for the years 1917, 1918 and 1919, decided herewith (218 App. Div. 60), it appears that the referee added the receipts from these three sources to the gross revenues. We think that the referee should have added such receipts in this case also. The business of selling and renting appliances useful to consumers of gas and electricity is a business incident to the manufacture and sale of gas and electricity in the prudent and economical management of that business in which the relator enjoyed the exercise of its special franchise. Such sales and rentals tended to increase the amount of gas and electricity sold through the exercise of such franchise and thus made the intangible value of relator’s property greater. It is apparent that it was only this indirect profit from increased use of gas and electricity which was contemplated or obtained by the relator. Similarly the sale of residuals was necessarily incident to the manufacture of gas sold through operations involving the exercise of the special franchise. The residuals sold were such by-products as coke. The sale of such by-products directly affected the net revenue in the gas business by lessening the cost of the manufacture of gas. In the other appeal involving the assessments for the succeeding years [49]*49counsel for relator concedes in his brief the propriety of including receipts from sales of residuals in the gross earnings, on the ground that they are receipts from operations in some way necessarily connected with relator’s manufacture and sale of gas. We conclude that the referee erred in omitting from gross earnings the receipts from merchandise and jobbing, rent of appliances and sale of residuals.

(2) Operating expenses. The referee having failed to include receipts from merchandise and jobbing, rent of appliances and sale of residuals, likewise excluded the expenses connected therewith. Inasmuch as these receipts should have been included the expenses connected therewith should likewise have been included as items of operating expenses.

The relator sought, and the referee allowed, under operating expenses a deduction of $4,623 on account of “ amortization of debt, discount and expense.” The respondent complains of such deduction. This item represents the annual amount set aside by the relator for amortization of debt expense incurred in the sale of its bonds, representing such expenses as printing, commissions, lawyers’ fees and like expenses which the company incurred in marketing such securities. It does not include debt discount. It is the opinion of the court, as expressed in the opinion of Mr. Justice Kellogg, that the referee properly allowed this item. I dissent from this view for the following reasons: Under the uniform system of accounts prescribed by the Public Service Commission the relator is required to amortize said debt expense in yearly installments. While such expense so amortized is payable out of income, it is not an operating expense. It is an expense due to the fact that stockholders authorize the company to borrow instead of advancing more capital. In computing under the net earnings rule a full return is allowed on the present value of the property bought with the capital so borrowed. The debt expense should be borne by the stockholders out of the net earnings and they are not deductions that should be considered for the purpose of arriving at net earnings. Such expense has nothing to do with the operation of the plant. I think the referee erred in including this item as one of the operating expenses but the opinion of the court is to the contrary.

The referee allowed the amount claimed by the relator for depreciation of tangible property. The courts have recognized that despite ordinary repairs and maintenance physical property will in the course of time wear out and that there must be set aside annually out of gross receipts an amount in addition to ordinary [50]*50repairs and maintenance, sufficient to replace such property at the end of its useful life. An allowance for this purpose should be made out of the gross earnings in order to ascertain the true earning capacity. (People ex rel. Jamaica Water Supply Co. v. Tax Commissioners, 196 N. Y. 39, 57.) The Court of Appeals has laid down the rule that in applying the net earnings rule to the valuation of a special franchise such allowance for depreciation should be made on the basis of what is known as the straight line method.” The annual allowance for depreciation should be computed by dividing the values of the various kinds of tangible property by' the number of years of their respective estimated physical lives and that will be the opinion of the court.” (People ex rel. Manhattan Railway Co. v. Woodbury, 203 N. Y. 231, 236.) In accordance with the above rule the relator determined the annual percentage of depreciation based upon the estimated life of each class of tangible property and applied that percentage to the cost to reproduce new such class of property. The amount set aside by the relator for wear, tear, obsolescence and inadequacy as shown by its books of account and reports for the year in question was a much smaller sum than that produced by the so-called straight line method allowed by the referee for depreciation. The respondent contends that the amount actually set aside by the relator upon its books should be used to represent depreciation and obsolescence. We think the referee was correct in applying the rule as laid down by the Court of Appeals. The relator claims, and it is not disputed, that the amount reserved on its books was based upon percentages of gross receipts less repairs. To adopt such figures would be to adopt a rule which is not the equivalent of the rule laid down by the Court of Appeals. The amount of property retired in any year has no just relation to the amount of depreciation of the entire property of a corporation. The property retired may be much smaller in one year and during other years much larger than the annual depreciation for those years. The retirements in any year depend upon the number of pieces of property which have happened to reach the expiration of their physical lives during that year. The reserve contemplated by the straight line method must be sufficient to take care of all retirements when they occur.

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Bluebook (online)
218 A.D. 44, 217 N.Y.S. 707, 1926 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5858, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-ex-rel-central-hudson-gas-electric-co-v-state-tax-commission-nyappdiv-1926.