Stryker Corp. v. Director, Division of Taxation

18 N.J. Tax 270
CourtNew Jersey Tax Court
DecidedAugust 16, 1999
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 18 N.J. Tax 270 (Stryker Corp. v. Director, Division of Taxation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Jersey Tax Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Stryker Corp. v. Director, Division of Taxation, 18 N.J. Tax 270 (N.J. Super. Ct. 1999).

Opinion

KUSKIN, J.T.C.

The New Jersey Corporation Business Tax Act, N.J.S.A. 54:10A-1 to -40, imposes a tax on the entire net income of every corporation doing business in New Jersey. N.J.S.A 54:10A-2 and -5(c). Under N.J.S.A. 54:10A-6, a corporation which does business in New Jersey, and maintains a regular place of business in another state or states, is obligated to pay tax only on that [273]*273portion of its entire net income which is allocable to this State. The formula for determining the allocation includes a “receipts fraction,” the numerator of which is the receipts of the corporation attributable to New Jersey and the denominator of which is the corporation’s total receipts.

Plaintiff is a manufacturing corporation having places of business in New Jersey and other states. Defendant determined that, in calculating its Corporation Business Tax liability, plaintiff should have included, in the numerator of its receipts fraction, all receipts generated by drop-shipment transactions. In a drop-shipment transaction, a manufacturer ships merchandise directly to the customer of a dealer which sold the merchandise to the customer. The dealer pays the manufacturer for the merchandise, and the customer pays the dealer. Plaintiff challenges defendant’s determination on the grounds that plaintiff properly excluded from the numerator of its receipts fraction those receipts generated by drop-shipment sales involving shipments of merchandise directly to out-of-state customers of the dealer which ordered the merchandise from plaintiff.

The matter was submitted for decision on the following stipulated facts. The years at issue are 1988 through 1992 (the “audit years”). During the audit years, plaintiff, a Michigan corporation, maintained a place of business in Allendale, New Jersey, at which it manufactured orthopedic hips and knees. The Allendale facility was the only facility operated by plaintiff for the manufacture of hips and knees. Plaintiffs principal place of business was in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it operated manufacturing facilities for products other than hips and knees in Michigan and California. During the audit years, plaintiff shipped merchandise from Allen-dale to thirty-six states, but was qualified to do business only in New Jersey, California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan and Tennessee. Plaintiff filed Corporation Business Tax returns for the audit years in New Jersey, and filed income or franchise tax returns in the other states in which it was qualified to do business as well as in New York, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.

[274]*274Osteonics Corp. (“Osteonics”) is a New Jersey corporation. During the audit years, it wás a wholly-owned subsidiary of plaintiff and conducted business in New Jersey. Osteonics’ sole business was' the marketing and sale to purchasers within the United States of the orthopedic hips and knees manufactured by plaintiff in New Jersey. Osteonics and plaintiff occupied space in the same buildings in Allendale. The lease for the buildings was from an independent third party to Osteonics. Plaintiff occupied 167,949 square feet of the total of 175,866 square feet under lease, and Osteonics occupied the remaining 7,117 square feet. There was no written sublease from Osteonics to plaintiff. Plaintiff paid the costs for the Allendale facility, including rent and insurance, an allocable portion of which was reimbursed by Osteonics.

During the audit years, the orthopedic hips and knees manufactured by plaintiff at the Allendale facility were sold to Osteonics for resale by Osteonics to its customers in the United States. Plaintiff did not sell any hips and knees directly to customers in the United States. Customers placed orders for hips and knees with Osteonics either through an Osteonics sales representative or directly with Osteonics personnel located at Allendale. In either case, upon receipt of an order, Osteonics personnel at Allendale entered the order into Osteonics’ computer system, identifying the customer and its billing address, the shipping address, the product purchased, and the price at which the product was sold to the customer. After inputting and processing a customer order, Osteonics placed its order with plaintiff via an in-line computer. Osteonics did not have any employees engaged in shipping, receiving, warehouse, or distribution functions. Plaintiff performed these functions. Thus, upon receipt of the order from Osteonics, plaintiffs personnel rrauld locate the ordered product from inventory, pack it, and, pursuant to the delivery instructions entered on the computer system by Osteonics, ship the product to Osteonics’ customer either wuthin or outside of New Jersey. If a product was not available in inventory, the order from Osteonics would be sent to plaintiffs manufacturing department. After the product was manufactured, plaintiff would then package the product and ship directly to Osteonics’ customer pursuant to the computerized [275]*275shipping instructions. After shipment, either from inventory or after manufacture, plaintiff confirmed the shipment of each order to Osteonics for billing by Osteonics to its customer. Plaintiff shipped the products from its Allendale facility via common carrier, F.O.B. Allendale. The direct costs of shipping were generally passed on to Osteonics’ customers, although, occasionally, Osteonics would pay the shipping costs because of competitive pressures or the nature of its relationship with the customer.

Plaintiff did not provide a written bill or invoice to Osteonics for each product order. On at least a quarterly basis, personnel from plaintiff and Osteonics would review Osteonics’ receipts from sales in order to determine and implement price and profit allocations, with a final reconciliation of the allocations being made at the close of each year. The allocation of price and profit was based upon providing to plaintiff a price consisting of the following elements:

1) reimbursement of a share of direct expenses incurred by plaintiff in connection with the manufacture of its products at the Allendale facility, including manufacturing, warehousing, packaging and shipment costs, with Osteonics’ share being based on the percentage of plaintiffs total sales represented by sales to Osteonics;
2) reimbursement of a share of expenses related to the Allendale facility for rent and items such as insurance, utilities, and maintenance, with Osteonics’ share being based on the percentage of the total leased space occupied by Osteonics;
3) reimbursement of the cost of certain administrative services provided by plaintiff to Osteonics, such as payroll, with Osteonics’ share of such cost being based on the relative size of plaintiffs and Osteonics’ workforce at the Allendale facility; and
4) a profit margin for plaintiff.

The pricing by Osteonics to its customers included a gross profit margin to Osteonics of approximately twenty percent. Accordingly, in allocating Osteonics’ receipts from sales of products between Osteonics and plaintiff, the twenty percent gross profit to Osteonics was subtracted and the balance was allocated to plaintiff. This procedure was intended to return to plaintiff an adequate profit margin on sales, and reimburse plaintiff for the expenses paid by it in connection with the Allendale facility but attributable to Osteonics’ use of the facility.

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Bluebook (online)
18 N.J. Tax 270, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stryker-corp-v-director-division-of-taxation-njtaxct-1999.