Revenue Cabinet v. Brown Badgett, Inc.

771 S.W.2d 819, 1989 Ky. LEXIS 52, 1989 WL 60212
CourtKentucky Supreme Court
DecidedJune 8, 1989
DocketNo. 88-SC-00473-DG
StatusPublished

This text of 771 S.W.2d 819 (Revenue Cabinet v. Brown Badgett, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Kentucky Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Revenue Cabinet v. Brown Badgett, Inc., 771 S.W.2d 819, 1989 Ky. LEXIS 52, 1989 WL 60212 (Ky. 1989).

Opinion

LAMBERT, Justice.

This Court granted discretionary review to consider whether five items of expense incurred by appellee Brown Badgett, Inc. were transportation expenses for which an exclusion is allowed in determining the “gross value” of coal, the amount subject to the severance tax imposed by KRS 143.-020. Without benefit of this Court’s recent decision in Tradewater Mining Company v. Revenue Cabinet, Ky., 753 S.W.2d 551 (1988), and relying on its decision in Revenue Cabinet v. Pyramid Mining Co., Ky. App., 741 S.W.2d 662 (1987), the Court of Appeals allowed appellee to exclude the cost of the five items of expense at issue in this case and disallowed only its claimed exclusion for cost of removal of refuse. As appellee did not cross appeal from the portion of the Court of Appeals decision related to refuse removal, that issue is not before us and will not be addressed here.

For a proper understanding of the issues raised, it is necessary to briefly state the facts. Appellee operated an underground mine and two surface or strip mines. Coal was removed from the underground mine and carried to the surface by conveyor and stockpiled at or near the mine mouth. From there it was loaded by front-end loader onto trucks and transported along a haul road to a wash plant. From the strip mines coal was removed from the seams by shovel and placed directly into trucks which transported it to the wash plant.

At the wash plant the coal was washed, sized, otherwise processed and then stockpiled. From the stockpile it was loaded into highway trucks and taken to a scale house where it was weighed. From the scale house the trucks took the coal along the haul road, then onto a public highway, and finally to a rail loading facility where the coal was loaded onto railroad cars for shipment. Other coal from the stockpile at the mine mouth was taken by truck directly to a barge-loading facility where the weighing took place after the coal had been loaded onto barges.

The five items of expense which ap-pellee claims should be excluded from “gross value” in computing the severance tax are as follows:

1. Third party contract hauling expense incurred in transporting coal from the washer to the loading facility;
2. Loaders and shovels used to load coal from the seam or mine mouth onto [821]*821trucks, including such expenses as depreciation, repair, maintenance and employee wages and benefits;
3. Expenses paid to third parties for loading coal onto rail or barge transport facilities;
4. Scale expenses including repair, maintenance, depreciation and insurance; and
5. Amounts paid to third parties to weigh barges after the coal is loaded.

The primary statute before us is KRS 143.010(11) which includes in transportation expense, and thus excludes from taxation (a) the amount paid to a third party to transport coal “from the mine mouth or pit to a processing plant, tipple, loading dock or customer ..(b) the costs incurred by using the taxpayer’s own facilities to transport coal “from the mine mouth or pit to a processing plant, tipple, loading dock or customer;” and (c) costs "incurred in transporting the coal for purpose of marketing.” Subsection (d) provides, however, that “In no case shall transportation expenses include the cost of acquisition, improvements, or maintenance of real property; the cost of loading or unloading facilities.”

In addition to KRS 143.010(11), set forth above, Section (6) of the Act declares that “ ‘gross value’ is synonymous with gross income from property as defined in Section 613(c) of the Internal Revenue Code ... with the exception that in all instances transportation expenses (whether or not by common carrier) incurred in transporting coal shall not be considered as gross income from the property.”

Based on the foregoing statutes, appellee maintains that transportation expenses should be excluded from the amount subject to severance tax if they fall within either of two categories: (1) nonmining transportation expenses which are not included in gross income from property under federal law and thus are not included in gross value pursuant to Section (6) of the Act, or (2) mining transportation expenses under Sections (ll)(a) or (ll)(b) or marketing costs under Section (ll)(c). Revenue, on the other hand, argues for a strict construction of Section (11) and disallowance of any reliance on Section (6) because the argument was not presented to the courts below.

In Tradewater Mining Company v. Revenue Cabinet, Ky., 753 S.W.2d 551 (1988), this Court faced the issues presented and adopted the approach urged by appellee. At issue in Tradewater was whether the expenses involved in utilizing Tradewater’s own barge and dock facility, located twelve miles from its processing plant, were taxable. Revenue argued, and the Court of Appeals agreed, that the costs were taxable because they were excluded from the definition of transportation expense by KRS 143.010(ll)(d). This Court reversed. We held that subsection (11), defining transportation expenses, applied only to those transportation expenses classified as mining transportation under federal law; that those expenses classified as nonmining transportation under federal law were never included in gross value to begin with, and were thus nontaxable. We held that KRS 143.010(ll)(a) and (b) exclude transportation expenses otherwise includable in gross value because they are mining transportation under federal law, and the purpose of (ll)(c) is to codify the nonmining transportation expenses (not subject to federal taxation) set forth in Treasury Regulation § 1.613-3(g)(3). That regulation states that

Transportation the primary purpose of which is marketing, distribution, or delivery for the application of only nonmining processes shall not be considered as mining. Nor shall transportation be considered as mining merely because, during the course of such transportation, some extraneous matter is removed from the ore or mineral by the operation of forces of nature, such as evaporation, drainage, or gravity flow.

Based on all the foregoing this Court in Tradewater concluded on pp. at 552 and 553:

KRS 143.010(ll)(d) makes it clear that the legislature wanted to maintain loading and unloading costs incidental to mining as processing costs and not to elimi[822]*822nate these costs under its general exemption of transportation costs.

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Related

Revenue Cabinet, Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Pyramid Mining Co.
741 S.W.2d 662 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 1987)
Tradewater Mining Co. v. Revenue Cabinet Commonwealth
753 S.W.2d 551 (Kentucky Supreme Court, 1988)

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Bluebook (online)
771 S.W.2d 819, 1989 Ky. LEXIS 52, 1989 WL 60212, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/revenue-cabinet-v-brown-badgett-inc-ky-1989.