Republic Cotton Mills v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

147 F.2d 278, 33 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 659, 1945 U.S. App. LEXIS 4377
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 31, 1945
DocketNo. 5303
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 147 F.2d 278 (Republic Cotton Mills v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Republic Cotton Mills v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 147 F.2d 278, 33 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 659, 1945 U.S. App. LEXIS 4377 (4th Cir. 1945).

Opinion

SOPER, Circuit Judge.

This petition for review relates to a decision of the Tax Court which denied a claim for refund of processing taxes in the sum of $435,340.73 paid by Republic Cotton Mills, a South Carolina corporation, on the output of three mills under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of May 12, 1933, 48 Stat. 31, 7 U.S.C.A. § 601 et seq. The Act was declared unconstitutional in January, 1936, in United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 56 S.Ct. 312, 80 L.Ed. 477, 102 A.L.R. 914, and Rickert Rice Mills v. Fontenot, 297 U.S. 110, 56 S.Ct. 374, 80 L.Ed. 513. Thereafter Congress repealed the Act and prescribed the conditions for refund of the tax by Title VII, §§ 901 to 917 of the Revenue Act of 1936, 49 Stat. 1648, 7 U.S.C.A. §§ 623 note, 644-659. Jurisdiction to pass upon claims for refund was lodged in the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, subject to review by a Board of Review established in the Treasury Department; and subsequently the Board of Review was abolished and the jurisdiction vested therein was transferred to the Board of Tax Appeals, now the Tax Court, by § 510(j) of the Revenue Act of 1942, 56 Stat. 967, 26 U.S. C.A. Int.Rev.Acts.

Section 902 of the Revenue Act of 1936 prohibits any refund of the tax unless the claimant establishes that he bore the burden of the tax and has not been relieved thereof nor reimbursed therefor, nor shifted the' burden of the tax in any manner whatsoever.

Section 907 prescribes rules of evidence and presumptions to be used in the determination of claims for refund. Section 907(a) provides: “Where the refund claimed is for an amount paid or collected as processing tax, as denned herein, it shall be prima-facie evidence that the burden of such amount was borne by the claimant to the extent (not to exceed the amount of the tax) that the average margin per unit of the commodity processed was lower during the tax period than the average margin was during the period before and after the tax. If the average margin during the tax period was not lower, it shall be prima facie evidence that none of the burden of such amount was borne by the claimant but that it was shifted to others.”

The average margin for the tax period and the average margin for the period before and after the tax are computed in the same way. The average margin for each period is the average of the margins for all of the months therein. The margin for each month is computed as follows: “From the gross sales value of all articles processed by the claimant from the commodity during such month, deduct the cost of the commodity processed during the month and deduct the processing tax paid with respect thereto. The sum so ascertained shall be divided by the total number of units of the commodity processed during such month, and the resulting figure shall be the margin for the month.” Section 907(b) (1) and (2).

The average margins for each period are ascertained in the same manner as the monthly margins by using “total gross sales value, total cost of commodity processed, total processing tax paid, and total units of commodity processed, during such period.” Section 907(b) (3).

Where the articles produced and sold by the claimant are the product of several commodities combined during processing, the average margins are established with respect to such commodities as a group and not individually. Section 907(b) (4).

The “tax period” means the period during which the claimants paid the tax. In this case the tax period was August 1, 1933, to March 31, 1935. The “period before and after the tax”, hereinafter called the base period, means the twenty-four months immediately preceding August 1, 1933, the effective date of the tax, and the six months, February to July, 1936, inclusive. Section 907(c).

The presumptions established by Section 907(a), however, are not conclusive. Section 907(e) provides in part as follows: “Either the claimant or the Commissioner may rebut the presumption established by subsection (a) of this section by proof of the actual- extent to which the claimant shifted to others the burden of the processing tax. Such proof may include, but shall not be limited to — (1) Proof that the difference or lack of difference between the average margin for the tax period and the average margin for the period before and after the tax was due to changes in factors other than the tax. Such factors shall in-[280]*280elude any clearly shown change (A) in the type or grade of article or commodity, or (B) in costs of production.”

The claim for refund in the pending case was rejected by the Commissioner. Appeal was taken to the Board of Review and a hearing was had at which a great volume of testimony was taken and a large number of exhibits was filed. The presiding officer of the Board filed recommended findings of fact in extenso and a recommended decision adverse to the claims without opinion or discussion; and the case was argued before the Board. But the Board was abolished before rendering a decision, and the case was then submitted to the Tax Court on the records and briefs. The court adopted, with slight modifications, the findings recommended by the presiding officer of the Board and filed a brief opinion wherein, without discussion of its findings of fact or their bearing on the matter in dispute, it rejected the claim for refund in toto. It pointed out the admission of the claimant that in common with the rest of the industry it had tried to pass the tax on and showed that the statutory margins on the goods processed in its three mills, considered as a single entity, created a presumption against the claimant. It rejected the claimant’s contention that the statutory margin of Mill 3 should be determined separately from that of Mills 1 and 2, since the business of Mill 3 was entirely separate and distinct from that conducted in Mills 1 and 2.

In this connection the court said: “We are unable to agree with petitioner’s treatment of the mills as separate businesses and cannot approve the consequences claimed to result from such treatment. We have found that despite the maintenance of separate books of account, the manufacture of different products, the employment of different sales agencies, and the maintenance of separate organizations for Mills 1-2 and Mill 3, the business of petitioner was carried on and maintained as a single business venture. On the facts before us we are of the opinion that petitioner’s business must be treated as a single business entity in the solution of the problem presented.”

The court also referred to the claimant’s arguments that it was prevented by competitive conditions from passing on the tax to the buyers, and that the extent of the burden borne by it could best be measured by comparison of prices before and after the imposition of the tax; but the court deemed it unnecessary to discuss these contentions or to determine the precise weight to be given to each of the factors advanced, and merely said that their aggregate weight was insufficient to convince them that the claimant bore the burden of any part of the processing tax which it had paid.

We come at once to the holding of the court that in computing the statutory margins contemplated by Section 907 of the Act, the margins ascertained with respect to goods processed in Mills’ 1 and 2 should be combined with the margins ascertained with respect to goods processed in Mill 3 in order to determine the margins applicable to the business as a whole.

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Related

O'Brien v. United States
124 Ct. Cl. 655 (Court of Claims, 1953)
Republic Cotton Mills v. Commissioner
167 F.2d 871 (Fourth Circuit, 1948)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
147 F.2d 278, 33 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 659, 1945 U.S. App. LEXIS 4377, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/republic-cotton-mills-v-commissioner-of-internal-revenue-ca4-1945.