Opinion

South Central Bell Telephone Co. v. Traigle

  • 357 So. 2d 610
  • 1978 La. App. LEXIS 3329
Court
Louisiana Court of Appeal
Filed
Mar 20, 1978
Status
Published
Author
Blanche
On the bench
Blanche, Chiasson, Coving, Ellis, Ponder, Ton
Cited by
3 cases

Reversed on other grounds by South Central Bell Tel. Co. v. Traigle, 367 So. 2d 1143 (1978)

The opinion

BLANCHE, Judge,

dissenting.

I am of the opinion that the trial judge is correct. The tax is a “gross receipts” tax and includes all receipts of the public utility. The evidence is heavily in favor of a finding that the “Yellow Pages” constitute an indispensable and integrated part of the operation of a telephone franchisé. I agree when the trial judge remarked:

“ * * * It would tax one’s imagination to hold that revenues derived from directory classified advertising constitute revenues derived from a separate enterprise outside the scope of South Central Bell’s business of ‘furnishing telephone service for compensation.’ ” (Record, p. 90)

South Central Bell attempts to justify its refusal to pay the tax on the omission of certain language from Act 116 of 1940 as indicating that the Legislature has exempted receipts from a source incidental to the business of furnishing telephone revenue. Without admitting the nature of such reve- *615 imes as being “incidental,” the omission of the language in the Act was for the purpose of making the tax applicable only to the intrastate business of the public utility and not to supply some tax exemption to public utilities.

For the above reasons, I respectfully dissent.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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