Seismograph Service Corp. v. Bureau of Revenue

293 P.2d 977, 61 N.M. 16
CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 17, 1956
Docket5895
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 293 P.2d 977 (Seismograph Service Corp. v. Bureau of Revenue) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Seismograph Service Corp. v. Bureau of Revenue, 293 P.2d 977, 61 N.M. 16 (N.M. 1956).

Opinion

KIKER, Justice.

In this case appellee, a corporation, filed suit in the district court of Santa Fe County for recovery of $14,202.55 paid under protest by plaintiff to defendant, Bureau of Revenue, for taxes levied under the Emergency School Tax Act of this state. Appellee claimed that the taxes were illegally levied for the reasons: 1.) the levies are a burden upon interstate commerce in violation of Article 1, § 8 of the Constitution of the United States; 2.) the levies constitute a taking of private property without due process of law in violation of the fourteenth amendment; and 3.) the levies, being prohibited by the United States Constitution, are expressly prohibited by the provisions of the Emergency School Tax Act.

Appellants answered by admitting the levies and collection of the tax and that the amount was paid under protest but denied that the levies were unlawfully made and that the collection was unlawfully made.

The case was tried to the court without a jury and judgment was for the plaintiff. From that judgment this appeal was taken.

The trial court made the following findings of fact:

“1. That plaintiff is a corporation organized under the laws of Delaware with its principal office and place of business in Tulsa, Oklahoma; that plaintiff maintains no branch office or agencies within the State of New Mexico.
“2. That the Bureau of Revenue of the State of New Mexico is created by the Legislature of said State, and is charged with the duty and function of collecting taxes levied by the Emergency School Tax Act of the State of New Mexico (Chapter 37, Session Laws of 193S as Amended) hereafter referred to as Act; that Manuel Lujan is the Commissioner of said Bureau and C. J. Bergere is the Director of the School Tax Division of said Bureau ; that all of the named defendants maintain their offices in the Capitol Building at Santa Fe, New Mexico.
“3. That plaintiff is principally engaged in the business of professional consultation upon geological and geophysical problems, encountered by the oil industry throughout the United States and many foreign countries. Its services are rendered under contracts with its clients, by which it agrees to furnish professional advice and corroborative information with regard to the subsurface geological formations of the earth’s crust in any given area.
“4. That plaintiff’s professional advice, opinions, and recommendations, supplemented by a contoured geophysical map and detailed technical discussion in writing, are formulated and prepared for presentation to its clients at plaintiff’s head offices in Tulsa, Oklahoma. These opinions and recommendations, formulated by expert geophysicists and geologists assembled there, are drawn from knowledge of the geology of the region, interpretation of unrefined geophysical data as to the designated area, and worldwide experience with the problems of obtaining and interpreting geophysical information.
“5. That plaintiff maintains at its principal offices in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a pool of specially trained and widely experienced personnel, assembled there for the primary purpose of providing its clients a concentration of professional skill and judgment to be applied in the performance of the services contracted for. The functions of this group are widely advertised by plaintiff as a fundamental factor in the quality of its service.
“6. That all contracts between plaintiff and its clients for services during all times material hereto were entered into in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or elsewhere than in the State of New Mexico, with parties each of whom were non-residents of the State of New Mexico.
“7. That the only function of plaintiff’s services performed in the State of New Mexico, insofar as is material hereto, was that of gathering the unrefined geophysical data in the designated area; such data was obtained by the operation of scientific instruments and equipment by field personnel dispatched to the State of New Mexico for such purpose.
“8. That all field personnel which were employed to gather data in the State of New Mexico were dispatched by plaintiff from Tulsa, Oklahoma, or elsewhere than the State of New Mexico, were supervised and administered from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and upon completion of their particular assignments in New Mexico, were returned to Tulsa, Oklahoma, or dispatched to other points outside the State of New Mexico. No permanent establishment for any purpose was or is maintained in the State of New Mexico by plaintiff.
“9. That the contract fees which plaintiff charged to its clients covered all of the operations required in each instance to furnish the professional advice and recommendations contracted for, each such operation being an inseparable function of the overall service rendered. Plaintiff’s entire income, insofar as is material hereto, consists of such contract fees received from its clients at Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“10. That, as indicated by the matters and things stated above, all of plaintiff’s business transactions, insofar as is material hereto, were indivisible unitary transactions in interstate commerce.
“11. That defendants assessed taxes upon plaintiff’s gross income, having arbitrarily allocated to the State of New Mexico all amounts received by plaintiff for professional services rendered to its clients for the period July 24, 1946, to June 30, 1952, in connection with any lands situated in that State, and on August 4, 1952, plaintiff paid-such taxes in the sum of $14,202.55, as levied under the Emergency School Tax Act as originally enacted and amended, said payment having been made under protest. That all matters and things necessary to a proper action for recovery of said taxes by plaintiff under the laws of the State of New Mexico have been complied with.
“12. That the said Emergency-School Tax Act as applied to plaintiff specifies no definite formula for the apportionment of gross income derived from interstate commerce.
“13. That the taxes involved during the time material hereto were assessed and levied under Section 76-1404(H), New Mexico Statutes, 1941 Annotated.
“14. That the local activity carried on by plaintiff in the State of New Mexico is an integral part of interstate processes and cannot be separated from it.”

Appellant defendant in the brief-in-chief has set out forty-four separate assignments of error. Thirty-eight of these assignments are presented under the following proposition stated as defendants’ point one:

‘■‘The services rendered by the plaintiff were local and not interstate in character.”

The findings of fact made by the trial court as above set forth are the facts in this case unless the attack made upon them by the defendant is sustained and they are set aside. Ritter-Walker Co. v. Bell, 46 N.M. 125, 123 P.2d 381; Bounds v. Carner, 53 N.M. 234, 205 P.2d 216; Renehan v. Lobato, 55 N.M. 532, 237 P.2d 100; Provencio v. Price, 57 N.M. 40, 253 P.2d 582.

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Related

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Monaghan v. Seismograph Service Corp.
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312 P.2d 803 (New Mexico Supreme Court, 1957)

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293 P.2d 977, 61 N.M. 16, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/seismograph-service-corp-v-bureau-of-revenue-nm-1956.