Justia Tax Law Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
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In April 2017 and June 2017, Appellant Diane Zilka filed petitions with the Philadelphia Department of Revenue (the “Department”), seeking refunds for the Philadelphia Tax she paid from 2013 to 2015, and in 2016, respectively. During the relevant tax years, Appellant resided in the City, but worked exclusively in Wilmington, Delaware. Thus, she was subject to four income taxes (and tax rates) during that time: the Philadelphia Tax; the Pennsylvania Income Tax (“PIT”); the Wilmington Earned Income Tax (“Wilmington Tax”); and the Delaware Income Tax (“DIT”). The Commonwealth granted Appellant credit for her DIT liability to completely offset the PIT she paid for the tax years 2013 through 2016; because of the respective tax rates in Pennsylvania versus Delaware, after this offsetting, Appellant paid the remaining 1.93% in DIT. Although the City similarly credited against Appellant’s Philadelphia Tax liability the amount she paid in the Wilmington Tax — specifically, the City credited Appellant 1.25% against her Philadelphia Tax liability of 3.922%, leaving her with a remainder of 2.672% owed to the City — Appellant claimed that the City was required to afford her an additional credit of 1.93% against the Philadelphia Tax, representing the remainder of the DIT she owed after the Commonwealth credited Appellant for her PIT. After the City refused to permit her this credit against her Philadelphia Tax liability, Appellant appealed to the City’s Tax Review Board (the “Board”). The issue this case presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's review as whether, for purposes of the dormant Commerce Clause analysis implicated here, state and local taxes had to be considered in the aggregate. The Court concluded state and local taxes did not need be aggregated in conducting a dormant Commerce Clause analysis, and that, ultimately, the City’s tax scheme did not discriminate against interstate commerce. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the Commonwealth Court order. View "Zilka v. Tax Review Bd. City of Phila." on Justia Law

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This case centered upon how Appellee Synthes USA HQ, Inc. should apportion its income between Pennsylvania and other states in order to calculate its Pennsylvania corporate net income tax. The two issues presented were: (1) does the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General (“OAG”) have the authority to represent the Commonwealth in this litigation, where it asserted an interpretation of the relevant tax provision contrary to the reading forwarded by the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue (“Department”); and (2) whether the allocation of a corporation's sales of services between Pennsylvania and other states for purposes of calculating the corporation’s income that was taxable in Pennsylvania. After review, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded the Commonwealth Attorneys Act permitted the OAG to take a position on behalf of the Commonwealth that was inconsistent with the position adopted by the Department, but the Court ultimately rejected the OAG’s reading of the relevant tax provision in favor of the interpretation presented by the Department. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the order of the Commonwealth Court remanding this case to the Board of Finance and Revenue for calculation and issuance of a tax refund by the Department to Synthes for the 2011 tax year. View "Synthes USA HQ v. Pennsylvania" on Justia Law

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This direct appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court centered on the efforts of Appellee John Myers to obtain a refund of 38 cents in sales tax he paid on purchases he made with redeemed coupons at BJ’s Wholesale Club, Inc. (BJ’s). The parties petitioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to interpret Section 33.2(b) of the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue Code, which excluded “from the taxable portion of the purchase price, if separately stated and identified." A vendor owes the state sales tax on the full price of the item unless it can establish a “new purchase price” of the item, which may be established where “both the item and the coupon are described on the invoice or cash register tape.” The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue Board of Appeals (BOA) relied on Section 33.2, which permitted amounts represented by coupons to establish a new purchase price “if both the item and the coupon are described on the invoice or cash register tape.” The BOA concluded that the coupons were not adequately described on the receipts, and nothing indicated which items the coupons were related. A unanimous three-judge panel of the Commonwealth Court reversed the Board’s order and found Appellee was entitled to a refund of overpaid sales tax. The Supreme Court reversed the Commonwealth Court, finding none of the receipts at issue here satisfied subsection 33.2(b)(2)’s description requirement. Because it was Appellee’s burden to prove that he was entitled to a refund of sales tax, he did not meet his burden. View "Myers v. Pennsylvania" on Justia Law

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Relator Edward J. O’Donnell filed a federal qui tam suit against his employer, alleging the employer violated the federal False Claims Act. As a financial incentive to take on this role, the FCA provided relators with a portion of any award that the federal government obtains in the qui tam action. The United States government ultimately settled with O’Donnell’s employer. O’Donnell received a 16% share of the settlement, or $34,560,000. The question before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in this case was whether this qui tam award was taxable in Pennsylvania as compensation under Section 303 of the Pennsylvania Tax Reform Code, 72 P.S. section 7303. The Supreme Court held that it was, thus reversing the order of the Commonwealth Court. View "O'Donnell v. Allegheny Co. Tax" on Justia Law

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General Motors was a Delaware corporation engaged in the sale of motor vehicles in Pennsylvania, and subject to Pennsylvania’s corporate income tax. GM contested the calculation of its 2001 Tax Year corporate income tax, after filing a report of change in its federal taxable income in March 2010. In February 2012, GM timely filed a petition for refund with the Department of Revenue’s (“Department”) Board of Appeals. It claimed that the cap on the net loss carryover (NLC) resulted in a “progressive effective tax rate” which violated the Uniformity Clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution. It explained that “a taxpayer conducting business on a larger scale in Pennsylvania pays a higher effective tax rate than a similarly situated taxpayer conducting business on a smaller scale.” In Nextel Communications of the Mid-Atlantic, Inc. v. Commonwealth, Department of Revenue, 171 A.3d 682 (Pa. 2017), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the NLC deduction applicable to corporate income tax for the tax year ending December 31, 2007 (“2007 Tax Year”), violated the Uniformity Clause. Here, the Court applied Nextel and considered GM's constitutional challenges to the NLC provisions applicable to corporate income tax in the tax year ending December 31, 2001 (“2001 Tax Year”). The Supreme Court agreed with the Commonwealth Court that Nextel applied retroactively to this case, however, it reversed the Commonwealth Court to the extent it remedied the violation of the Uniformity Clause by severing the $2 million NLC deduction cap, which would have resulted in an unlimited NLC deduction. Instead, the Supreme Court severed the NLC deduction provision in its entirety, resulting in no NLC deduction for the 2001 Tax Year. The Supreme Court affirmed the Commonwealth Court’s order to the extent it directed the Department to recalculate GM’s corporate income tax without capping the NLC deduction and issue a refund for the 2001 Tax Year, which the Court concluded was required to remedy the due process violation of GM’s rights pursuant to McKesson Corp. v. Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco, Department of Business Regulation of Florida, 496 U.S. 18 (1990). View "General Motors Corp. v. Pennsylvania" on Justia Law

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Appellee Greenwood Gaming & Entertainment Inc. (“Greenwood”) operated Parx Casino (“Parx”), located in Bensalem, Pennsylvania. During 2014, as part of its efforts to encourage slot machine and table game play, Greenwood distributed to patrons of Parx who played its slot machines and table games various “promotions, giveaways and direct player development:” items given away included cash, department store gift cards, and items of personal property. Parx also gave away tickets to attend live concerts and entertainment performances. In 2016, Greenwood filed a petition for refund with the Board of Appeals of the Department of Revenue (“Board of Appeals”) for the calendar year 2014, contending that it was entitled under Section 1103 of the Pennsylvania Gaming Act to exclude from the taxable revenue attributable to its table games and slot machines the value of all cash and personal property it distributed to the players of those games. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that concert tickets were not services within the meaning of Section 1103, and so were excludible from these taxable revenues. View "Greenwood Gaming v. Pennsylvania" on Justia Law

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Two taxing districts undertook parallel challenges to a property’s partial tax exemption. Appellee Huston Properties, Inc. (“Taxpayer”), owned the subject property (the “Property”). In 2013, Taxpayer, claiming to be a charitable institution, sought tax-exempt status for the Property for the 2014 tax year. After a hearing, the Chester County Board of Assessment Appeals granted a partial exemption, reasoning that that portion of the Property was used for charitable purposes. The City of Coatesville appealed that decision to the Court of Common Pleas. Six days later, the Coatesville Area School District, another taxing authority encompassing the Property, lodged its own appeal, also challenging the Property’s partially-tax-exempt status. The School District also intervened in the City's case. Ultimately, the trial court affirmed the Board's grant of a partial exemption. Both the City and the School District appealed to the Commonwealth Court, and Taxpayer cross-appealed as to each, seeking fully-exempt status for the Property. In a memorandum decision, the Commonwealth Court vacated and remanded to the trial court for more specific findings to support the partial tax exemption. On remand, the trial court set forth particularized findings and conclusions, and re-affirmed its earlier decision assessing the Property. At this juncture, the City elected not to appeal to the Commonwealth Court. The School District appealed the ruling in its own case, but it did not appeal the identical, simultaneous ruling which contained the City’s docket number. Taxpayer moved to quash the School District’s appeal. The Commonwealth Court granted the motion and dismissed the appeal observing that the common pleas court’s ruling in the City’s case became final after no party appealed it. Because the School District had intervened in that matter, it was a party to those proceedings. With that premise, the court found that res judicata and collateral estoppel barred it from reaching the merits. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that issue preclusion under the rubric of collateral estoppel should not have been applied to defeat the School District’s ability to obtain merits review of its substantive arguments in the intermediate court. The Commonwealth Court's judgment was vacated and the matter remanded for a merits disposition of the consolidated cross-appeals. View "In Re: Appeal of Coatesville Area Sch Dist" on Justia Law

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The appellant property owners (“Taxpayers”) allowed billboards to be placed their lands. The appellee local taxing authorities, Chester-Upland School District and Chichester School District (the “School Districts”), filed 22 assessment appeals relating to the subject properties for tax years 2014 and forward. In their appeals, the School Districts sought to increase the assessed value based on the presence of the billboards. After relief was denied by the county assessment board, the School Districts appealed to the Court of Common Pleas. Separately, four property owners also appealed to that court after their properties were reassessed due to the presence of billboards. The issue presented for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's review was whether the presence of a billboard on a property could affect the valuation of that property, such as where the landowner was entitled to ongoing payments pursuant to a lease with the billboard company. The Supreme Court found the Pennsylvania General Assembly has directed that billboards and their supporting structures were not real estate for tax assessment purposes. Here, the Court concluded the Commonwealth Court appropriately concluded that, although a billboard’s value may not itself be considered when assessing the underlying real property’s value, any increase in such value attributable to the billboard’s presence could be considered. View "In Re: Consol Apl of Chester-Upland SD, et al -" on Justia Law

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In this appeal, the issue presented to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court centered on whether the Business Privilege and Mercantile Tax (“BPT”) imposed by Appellee the City of York (“City”), had to be paid by Appellant, S & H Transport, Inc. (“S & H”), a freight broker, on the total yearly amount of money S & H receives from its customers for arranging shipping of commercial goods with freight carriers on their behalf, where, after deducting its commission, S & H remits the remaining money to the freight carriers as payment of their shipping fees. After careful review, the Supreme Court found that the amount of money S & H collected and passed on to freight carriers for their fees was excluded from taxation under the City’s BPT. View "S & H Transport v. City of York" on Justia Law

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In a case brought in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, Petitioner Sands Bethworks Gaming, LLC, challenged a recent amendment to Pennsylvania gaming law in which casinos paid a supplemental assessment on slot-machine revenue, and the funds are then distributed primarily to underperforming slot-machine facilities to be used for marketing and capital development. Sands alleged that the amendment violated the Pennsylvania Constitution’s requirement of uniform taxation, its mandate that all enactments have a public purpose, and its rule against special legislation. Sands also claimed the scheme violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution. The Supreme Court concluded the amendments were indeed unconstitutional, and the offending parts could be severed from the rest of the statute. Any assessment monies paid to the Commonwealth pursuant to the amended gaming law were ordered to be refunded. View "Sands Bethworks Gaming v. PA Dept of Revenue et al" on Justia Law