Time, Inc. v. Department of Revenue

295 N.E.2d 529, 11 Ill. App. 3d 282, 1973 Ill. App. LEXIS 2419
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMarch 16, 1973
DocketNo. 57214
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 295 N.E.2d 529 (Time, Inc. v. Department of Revenue) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Time, Inc. v. Department of Revenue, 295 N.E.2d 529, 11 Ill. App. 3d 282, 1973 Ill. App. LEXIS 2419 (Ill. Ct. App. 1973).

Opinion

Mr. JUSTICE ENGLISH

delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal by plaintiff, hereinafter Time, from a judgment on administrative review entered in the circuit court in favor of defendants, upholding a determination by the Department of Revenue that plaintiff owed $98,997.26 for Illinois use taxes, including statutory penalties and interest.

The use tax was levied on the purchase price of paper products manufactured out of State and shipped by common carrier to Time in Illinois. The finished unprinted paper was temporarily stored in Time’s Chicago warehouses, then cut to letter size, cut or formed into envelopes and subscription order forms, and then printed to make complete letters, envelopes and subscription order forms. The completed envelopes, letters, forms and return envelopes were than sent to Chicago letter shops where they were “stuffed” into the mailing envelopes and sent by mail to persons outside Illinois. (The use tax on paper used to mail the same letter, forms, etc., to residents of Illinois was paid in full and is not at issue in this case.)

The letters were used for solicitation purposes, notifying subscribers that their subscriptions were about to expire, mentioning reasons why they should continue receiving the magazines, and asking them to mail back the enclosed order form at once in the envelope furnished for that purpose.

On February 11, 1971, a hearing was held on plaintiffs protest of tax liability. The hearing officer found that' the use, i.e., cutting, printing and folding, of promotional paper occurred entirely within Illinois and thus constituted a taxable use under Illinois law. Further, he found that the use and conversion of the paper into advertising material and its mailing completely removed Time from the temporary storage exemption of the statute. On February 28, 1972, following a hearing on administrative review by the circuit court, an order was entered by that court incorporating the opinion of the hearing officer into a final judgment in favor of the Department of Revenue. From that judgment plaintiff has appealed.

OPINION

Time concedes that its processing of the paper in question constituted a use within the meaning of the Use Tax Act but not a taxable use. It contends (1) that the plain language of one of the provisions of the Act exempts the transaction in this case from taxation, and (2) that the trial court’s decision renders Illinois printers and manufacturers non-competitive with those in other major industrial states.

The Use Tax Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1969, ch. 120, par. 439.2), enacted as a complement to the Retailer’s Occupation Tax Act “to prevent evasion of the tax that applies when retail purchases are made within the State, and to protect the local retail merchant against diversion of his business to out-of-State sellers” (Turner v. Wright, 11 Ill.2d 161, 142 N.E.2d 84), defines “use” as “the exercise by any person of any right or power over tangible personal property incident to the ownership of that property * * Section 439.3 of the Act, relied on by Time, exempts certain property stored temporarily in Illinois after being brought from outside the State, and provides in its pertinent parts:

“To prevent actual or likely multistate taxation, the tax herein imposed does not apply to the use of tangible personal property in this State under the following circumstances:
# # #
(d) the temporary storage, in this State, of tangible personal property which is acquired outside this State and which, subsequent to being brought into this State and stored here temporarily, is used solely outside this State or physically attached to or incorporated into other tangible personal property that is used solely outside this State.” Ill. Rev. Stat. 1969, ch. 120, par. 439.3.

Time contends that the trial court misapplied the statute by reasoning, on the basis of the section’s prefatory language, that before a taxpayer can take advantage of the exemptions set forth in Section 439.3 quoted above, he must show that his case, if not exempted, “invokes or is likely to invoke multistate taxation.” We agree with Time that such a showing is not necessary and that the only requirement is for the taxpayer to establish that he meets the standards set forth in any one of the exclusions (in this case, those of paragraph (d)), and he does not assume the burden of demonstrating that multistate taxation will result if the exclusion is not granted. We take the phrase, “To prevent actual or likely multistate taxation s * *” to be a statement expressing the statutory purpose in file granting of exclusions and not one imposing a burden of proof upon a taxpayer who would, without such proof, come within one of the four specific exclusions.

Time’s argument concerning Section 439.3(d) is a very narrow one. The paragraph relates to two separate factual situations. The first is the broad exclusion of property temporarily stored in this State which is then “used solely outside this State.” Time makes no claim under this | language since, as mentioned above, it concedes that the paper was used by it in Illinois through the processing into letters, envelopes, etc. It does argue, however, that its transaction is exempt from taxation because the blank stock paper was “incorporated into other tangible personal property” (envelopes, letters and order forms) which were then “used solely outside this State” by recipients out of state. More specifically, it is claimed that once the paper was printed and mailed, the “use” of the paper occurred solely outside the State when recipients of the letters opened and read them, decided whether to continue the subscription, and mailed the return envelope after filling out the form, or simply disposed of the letter and the requested subscription form.

To reach this conclusion, Time must, and does, contend that the unfinished paper was “incorporated into” the letters, forms and envelopes. In support of this contention, Time cites three cases from other jurisdictions which it relies upon to support its interpretation of the meaning of the word “incorporated.” These cases are Diamond Oil Well Drilling Co. v. Purser, 256 S.W.2d 421 (Tex. Civ. App. 1953); Tempe Union High School Dist. v. Hopkins, 76 Ariz. 228, 262 P.2d 387; and Comptroller v. American Cyanamid Co., 240 Md. 491, 214 A.2d 596.

Diamond Oil Well Drilling Co. v. Purser, 256 S.W.2d 421 (Tex. Civ. App. 1953), was a personal injury action where the corut held that plaintiff s affidavit controverting defendant’s plea was sufficient because plaintiff s first amended petition was incorporated into the affidavit. We cannot disagree with that result since there were two documents which were incorporated into one, i.e., the affidavit became a part of plaintiffs original petition. It was not, as in the present case, the processing of one product into another form.

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Bluebook (online)
295 N.E.2d 529, 11 Ill. App. 3d 282, 1973 Ill. App. LEXIS 2419, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/time-inc-v-department-of-revenue-illappct-1973.