Opinion

Indiana Department of State Revenue v. Bethlehem Steel Corp.

  • 639 N.E.2d 264
  • 1994 Ind. LEXIS 104
  • 1994 WL 445089
Court
Indiana Supreme Court
Filed
Aug 19, 1994
Status
Published
Author
DeBRULER
On the bench
Shepard, Givan, Dickson, Debruler, Sullivan
Cited by
16 cases
Authority
More cited than 9.9%

stating that Supreme Court “generally approve[s]” of the Tax Court’s reading and application of section 6-2.1-2-2(a), in a case dealing with application of gross income statute to sale of federal tax benefits

How later courts described this case

  • stating that Supreme Court “generally approve[s]” of the Tax Court’s reading and application of section 6-2.1-2-2(a), in a case dealing with application of gross income statute to sale of federal tax benefits
  • providing that when cases are resolved on statutory grounds, the Court need not address constitutional claims
  • providing that when cases aré resolved on statutory grounds, the Court need not address constitutional claims
  • intangible income taxed by domiciliary state, not Indiana, under Indiana’s gross income tax scheme

Written by the judges who cited it.

The opinion

DeBRULER, Justice,

dissenting.

The analysis in the majority opinion leads me along another road. As pointed out, the intent of the Indiana taxing legislation here is to tax the proceeds received from nondom-iciliaries and nonresidents from "activities or businesses or any other sources within Indiana...." Ind.Code § 62.122(@)@) (West 1989). In Gross Income Tax Division v. P.F. Goodrich Corp. (19783, 260 Ind. 41 , 292 N.E.2d 247 , we recognized that the proceeds received by a corporation domiciled in Indiana from a sale of a one-sixth interest in a related Illinois corporation, a transaction occurring wholly in Illinois, were subject to Indiana gross income tax. An important part of that case was its recognition that Tllinois also had a legitimate reason to impose a tax burden upon those proceeds, and that consistent with the Commerce Clause Indiana should apportion its tas. In the present case, Indiana is in the position that Illinois was in the Goodrich case, and some other state, perhaps Pennsylvania, is in the position that Indiana was in. The legislative provision that we construe today recognizes that Indiana, along with one or more other states, may impose some tax burden upon the proceeds of a single transaction. Such several burdens must each be apportioned to the real connections which each state has with the transaction. Here, major Indiana government services were marshalled to preserve the equipment that was the subject of these lease transactions. I find that Indiana intends to tax the proceeds received by a nondomiciliary corporations in such a transaction and that Indiana may do so, so long as it fairly apportions its tax. Hoosier Energy v. Dept. of State Revenue (1991), Ind., 572 N.E.2d 481 .

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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