knowing on the date the tax returns for those years became a do if so the metlife was obligated to satisfy those unpaid liabilities within the forty five day amnesty window in the fall of two thousand and three its failure to satisfy those unpaid liabilities however results in the imposition of double interest so determine when tax liability becomes due we look at the relevant tax statutes and here we're dealing with income taxes so we look at the income tax  income tax act provides the starting and the ending point of the analysis because it's the only provision in illinois tax law that defines when taxes become do rights plain terms section six when he states that tax is due on the date the return is d period its failure to do so once the imposition of double interest under section three to f of the uniform penalty and introspect the post court for the first district on the other hand ignored the plain terms of the income tax act and created a new definition for when tax becomes due on the public court held the tax becomes due on the date the department issues a formal assessment as opposed to what the legislature mandated in section six zero one eight of the income tax being the schmidt case and the figgy case but a close examination of both of those cases reveals that neither case defined when tax becomes due that was not an issue in either schmidt or in figgy in fact the issue presented in both of those amnesty payments and that light contends that it was unable to file an amended return during the embassy period because section five zero six be prohibited an amended return prior to a final change determination our nothing in section five zero six return to make an amnesty pavement notwithstanding the fact that a final change has our final change liability has not been finally determined so what the taxpayer would have done in this case meant life should have filed an amended return under subsection l of the department's regulations and made the amnesty payment and then when the i r s concluded its audit and the federal change liability was finally determined metlife could have then filed a section five six be amended return so we contend that the section man was not really still right the penalty would apply to the balance of any backpacks that was not paid during the amnesty period indeed metlife has from the day the return was d metlife has had a continuing obligation to pay all tax properly reportable and this is also where the appellate court went wrong the appellate court held that at the time the return was due metlife was obligated to only play pay what it self reported but that's not a correct unreasonable because what the department required in the good faith estimate regulation was no different than what is required in the absence of amnesty say at the time the taxpayer makes their tax payment when the return is due in effect the taxpayer is making a good faith estimate of what he or she believes the amount of tax is and if you come up short then the department tags you with interest and penalties that same estimation process the taxpayers engage in in the absence of amnesty when their original return is due is what was required again except during the amnesty period so when the amnesty act went into effect it effectively put all taxpayers in the state of illinois on notice to go back a few years and sort of redo your homework if you will to re evaluate your tax returns and engage in that same probabilistic estimation process that you normally engage in when your tax returns are due and do that same thing and just make sure that you've paid all properly reportable taxes make sure you haven't claimed and exemption you were not entitled to make sure you haven't taken a deduction that you are not entitled to so the process is actually identical to what taxpayers routinely do when they says that the department has yet to even identify would also come forward and pay their back taxes because even though well they would have to double our penalty if they didn't pay their back taxes but it's important to remember that amnesty also provided a substantial care it wasn't just double interest tax payers could also receive the abatement of one hundred percent interest that they otherwise would pay so in a case like this if just tag you with double interest if you didn't participate it encouraged you to participate by giving you one hundred percent abatement of interest so you wouldn't have to pay any interest on the back taxes and here that would have been a substantial amount given the fact that men like underpaid his taxes by about  when tax becomes due indeed the only provision that defines when income taxes becomes due is section six zero one day of the income tax act and that's why we've always returned to section six zero one eight of the income tax act so look at the one nine hundred eighty four act really and the legislature is presumed to give similar interpretation intend for terms that are similar to have similar meanings especially here where we're concerned with the same subject matter to follow of just storms earlier and i'm not sure i audit going on and there's a state audit going on but that doesn't preclude metlife from also looking at its own tax papers and tax returns and determining what the final change liability will be and that's what the department was requiring the department was requiring all taxpayers pay your back taxes if you owe any back taxes pay them if you're not sure whether you have back taxes you should probabilistic estimation skills you do it anyways when you file your original return do the same thing go back check your homework make sure you've paid all properly reportable taxes because from the date the return is due every taxpayer has an obligation to the public fisc is to pay all properly reportable taxes not just the amount of tax that you raising is sort of the facts in the marriott case in the in the marriott case the audit was initiated after the close of the embassy period but that fact we believe is not relevant because taxpayers are on notice to check their prior year's tax returns by the end of the act itself when the amnesty act went to into effect then taxpayers are notice to go back and check your tax returns because if you don't do that then you're running the risk of double interest so every taxpayer even them even marianne even though the audit wasn't initiated until two thousand and four it was on notice in two thousand and three when the amnesty act went into effect that there's a possibility we could be tagged with double interest if we are not careful and double check our prior years tax returns so what the department is requiring all taxpayers to do is to make a good faith estimate of what you believe you may owe in back taxes even if you're not under an audit because the department has a limit does not have unlimited resources to audit every taxpayer in the state of illinois the department can issue an assessment against every taxpayer in the state of illinois simply just can't do that only a small percentage of taxpayers are actually audited and issued assessments but the purpose of  interest only on the shortage this could result in a substantial shortfall to the state of illinois could it not me they did in fact pay you one hundred percent interest now for two hundred percent they paid the one hundred percent interest right but not do it would they would avoid paying the interest of one hundred percent on the amount that the u s made and the state would pick up the two hundred percent on the under estimate it could be a shortfall in the facts of any case i suppose it could be depending on what the numbers are but again the purpose of amnesty is not simply just to generate revenue for the state it's generating revenue it appears well it's it to generate revenue at a particular point in time i mean that's right and one of the things metlife says is well if we participated in amnesty you would have never gotten a single interest because we would have abated one hundred percent of interest that is true but the purpose of amnesty is there's a financial crisis in the state right now and it's sort of this big factor that requires a substantial amount of revenue to counter that financial crisis right now so whether we would have gotten the whether the public face would have received the money in the future or not the question is really would the financial condition have been alleviated at that point appellate court's decision holding that tax becomes due on the date of assessment is a fraud and then there is one practical consequence which would be to undermine the legislative intent just as calmly this goes to what you're saying as far short falling the public short changing the public fis again only a small percentage of taxpayers are actually audited and assess so we hold that the only taxes due for purposes of a mystery are those that have been finally assessed that we significantly narrow the universe of potentially eligible tax liabilities and should rather structure were not intended for such a small percentage of tax liabilities to be subject to the a b c s as one final point on this issue i'd like to discuss the two thousand and ten amendment to the uniform penalty an interesting if met life position is correct and on the sets right bill these are not subject to double interest in two thousand and three when the two thousand and ten amendments become very hard to explain because the two thousand and ten amendments exempt from liability the exact same types of exempt from double interest the exact same types of tax liabilities that metlife contends were already exempt and there's a clear presumption that the legislature does not act meaningless or superfluous provisions and the presumption is that this was a change in the law and mere clarification and that's met life heavy burden to rebut that presumption and as we've explained in our briefs metlife has failed on that point so again this does raise the practical issue of how taxpayer and met life position  who goes back taxes but is not precisely aware of the precise amount of back taxes that will ultimately be term and can participate in in the city and that's exactly why the department promulgated the good faith estimate regulation the department recognized that there was this potential problem but by requiring that taxpayers to engage in this probabilistic estimation judgment as to what their back taxes may be required nothing more than what was required at the time the original return was doing as an explanation on this point the unreported evidence is actually did dozens of taxpayers who were meant less position who did not know the precise amount of their tax liabilities were able to make this estimation and were able to pay a good faith estimate during the amnesty period so it seems a little hard to believe that met life being as big of a company as it is it is the type of corporation that would be unsophisticated and not be able to engage in its reasonable probabilistic estimation of right its back taxes are because met right on pay tax liabilities became due on the date the return is due and not on the date of assessment it was obligated to satisfy sly bilbies during the  period and therefore double interest was w good morning and may it please the court i'm john beak of neil gerber nice and berg appearing on behalf of metropolitan life insurance company the apollyon this case this case presents the question of whether met life should be punished with the double interest penalty of the two thousand and three amnesty act for not having been able to predict the additional amount of illinois tax liability that the company with ultimately zero as a result of an have both held in this case that the phrase all taxes due in the two thousand and three amnesty act means taxes that a taxpayer knew were due and owing during the amnesty reporting period and both of the courts ruled in not deciding when met life federal changed hacks liability once it ultimately had been determined after that i r s wound its way to a conclusion and was finalized when that federal change tax collection system on its head and it's going to lead to widespread noncompliance with illinois taxes are baseless the fact is that taxes under six a one a would still be owed as of the original due date of the return we don't dispute that and that's what met life you know reported unpaid interest on the department would still have the ability to conduct audits of tax payers and if the department auditor determines  deficiency that deficiency would of course be owed to the state had to be paid and interest would be due on it so the appellate court focused solely on the phrase all taxes due in the two thousand and three amnesty act and it in no way addressed or disturbed section six zero one a of the illinois income tax act and general tax compliance under six someone any of them the words on or before the date fixed for the returns are there any significance at taxes are to be reported on the original return under the voluntary reporting system that illinois has and the federal government has for that matter what we have before us this morning is the two thousand and three amnesty act which was a separate regime that was requiring taxpayers during that october to mid november two thousand and three reporting period to report in taxes that were do we say no new taxes and if that hank spared didn't report in all the taxes that were due that they knew about then there would be this punitive double interest charge and maybe double penalties and so it's a separate regime a really big find in the amnesty right that's where we're here we're here because you're right your honor it's not defined in the amnesty act per se but we have substantial amounts of language in the two thousand and three amnesty act itself that informs this you know question as well as an ample amount of legislative intent and your judicial interpretation of that same phrase all taxes due in the one thousand nine hundred four act and i think that all ties together because when the general assembly was drafting in enacting the two thousand and three amnesty act they had the precedent of the one thousand nine hundred four amnesty act before in the language they had before difficult for the department to argue that schmidt and figgy you know are in a opposite and really are a real relevant to the matter at hand because it's all a matter of ultimately what the general assembly was contemplating metlife timely filed its federal in the illinois returns from one thousand nine hundred in one thousand nine hundred nine and paid the taxes reported on those returns the department agrees that metlife was undergoing a routine federal income tax audit of the thousand nine hundred ninety years during the amnesty reporting period in the fall of two thousand and three consistent with long established illinois income tax procedure met life reported the federal change tax liability f determination of that federal change tax liability occurred in july of two thousand and four more than eight months after the amnesty reporting period concluded and then why did all of that totally consistently with section five of six b of the income tax act which is what governs federal changes under the income tax sank in the department's longstanding administrative policies taxpayers were neither required nor permitted to estimate that estimate and paid in their claim back with respect to that that the department didn't permit bad or allow it and the income tax act in either met life made a timely payment of its federal change tax liability court has correctly held in this case that the phrase all taxes due means again for purposes of the two thousand and three amnesty act taxes that a taxpayer knew were due and owing during the amnesty reporting period  found that under the circumstances of this particular case metlife could not have participated in the two thousand and three amnesty act program and should have been required to because it didn't have the information but it would have needed to be able to estimate and determine what its federal change tax liability was ultimately going to be the appellate court determined that the regulation good faith estimate payment requirement particularly in the context of a federal change that wasn't yet even reportable under section five zero six d because it wasn't determined and finalized was not authorized by the two thousand and three amnesty act statute in finally and this is i think really kind of pertinent that the provision or statement in the department's two thousand and three amnesty act regulation that the phrase all taxes do encompassed whatever in illinois tax liability ultimately turned out to be post amnesty reporting period even if the taxpayer in the department didn't even know that there would be an additional tax liability to illinois but that all was illogical and the regulation was invalid and as a matter of statutory constructive and construction and legislative intent i would submit that the appellate court was totally correct on this for at least the following four reasons first we have the language of the two thousand and three amnesty act itself as justice thomas pointed out the two thousand and three amnesty act may not have defined the phrase all taxes do but it did include the statement of the provision that failure to pay all taxes due to the state for a taxable period covered by the act shall invalidate any amnesty granted under this act now if the department is correct that the phrase all taxes due really means whatever tax liability pops up post amnesty reporting period and is the term and to be do and that that's you know a good bet unknown tax liability is part of the all taxes due under the two thousand and three amnesty act even if the tax payer didn't know about it or the department didn't know about it then such a taxpayer under that circumstance through no fault of its own would retroactively lose the benefit of the abatement of interest and penalties on the amnesty payment that the taxpayer was supposed to receive under the two thousand and three amnesty act in addition of course to owing double interest and maybe double penalties on any maybe any shortfall in the amnesty payment i would submit that the general assembly didn't mean the two thousand and three amnesty act to be so fickle in its application as to snatch abatement benefits back from taxpayers who had unknown tax liabilities h would the whole raft and they'll hear the difference here between you know john q public who buy a tax return on a certain date that april fifteenth and is not aware that he or she has other tax liability you know no fault of their own really and in that case made a good faith estimate and then later and audits done of that taxpayer and they find out they say you know sorry you forgot about this again over here and now you're going to it's two years later you're going to hit with interest and penalties why why would the rationale  knowing defined as when you file a return you know under the amnesty they wouldn't have the record well i guess at the risk of repeating myself your honor which is never a good eye section six  one and that whole regular regime requires taxpayers to self report their tax liabilities and if it turns out that there was i you do sort of i want to know the why give me the rationale for why under the amnesty something different would be required under well because i think in two thousand and three just as they had in one thousand nine hundred four the general assembly was adopting this separate program that was requiring tax payer to if they had a known tax liability they better pay it in during the amnesty reporting period or else they would suffer double interest maybe double penalties on that amount if it were counsels we need the money and we need the money it's the reason that they're offering it well and the department of state certainly needed money there's no doubt about that but first of all they had to do it within the bounds of the law and for that matter what the due process clause would require and i can't be too arbitrary i also think that in enacting an amnesty program that applied to liabilities that taxpayers knew about and that's what the one thousand nine hundred four president had done there were still going to be plenty of tax payers out there that you know knew they had a tax liability because you know they they knew they had for example nexus in the state and they you know hadn't been were paying income tax or collecting sales tax they were sufficiently far along for that to it that they knew they were going to have additional federal to maximal income that would then flow through to the illinois return and so that was something that you know they could pay and because that had been determined through the i r s audit process so i think there was plenty of money for the state to capture through the two thousand and three amnesty act as it applied to liabilities that a taxpayer knew about but what the general assembly didn't mean when they were enacting this separate amnesty program with its super charged penalty provisions was to dayne taxpayers who didn't know that they had a tax liability and say you know what you have a tax liability we now all  because that tax liability result relates to a tax period covered by the amnesty act we're going to sock you not only with the regular interest but also with this doubled interest amount that really is quite a lot harsher than what the regular income tax enforcement and compliance provisions require so humid description of this john q public person who might have understood that there was something  the metlife federal tax returns are i think like a foot thick they're very complicated returns with many many issues and items reported in them and you know it was like many other large corporate tax payers issues come up for discussion between the i r s agent and the taxpayer and there are great issues you know for example whether something's deductible or not whether it has to be reported for this period versus another tax period and i'm pretty confident that those were the types of issues that were involved in that i r s audit as it played out and i guess i go back to tom's question while that may be more different you know i don't know that it really is any different and maybe i'm failing to appreciate it you know if a taxpayer who had a tax liability that they knew about then they were required to pay it during the two thousand and three amnesty act with supposed to apply to were you know known tax liabilities as opposed to a known tax liabilities that only were discovered post amnesty reporting period it wasn't meant to just sweep everything in you know if the general assembly had wanted to do that it would have been more straightforward for them just simply to double the rate of the interest in the regular interest statute n f l deficiency was discovered post amnesty reporting period he should double interest they would have had to go through the gyrations of the two thousand and three amnesty act and all taxes due when and all of that but wouldn't the if if the purpose of the act was taxpayer a small taxpayer right and you were supposed to pay it in and there were double interest consequences for not doing so but but but if if your returns under an audience you certainly have a heightened idea there could might or could well be more tense i think it's probably fair to say that met life you know might have ended up playing something but what was it going to be it had no idea in the october to mid november two thousand and three amnesty reporting period and it would have been just picking a number out of the air and saying ok there's our estimate you know we'll pay it in and then you know as we point out in the brief because the department took the position then has taken the position of there's a one year limitations period there could have been real problems with met life if it had even been able to make  good faith estimate of what its federal change liability was going to be with it being able to actually cover a refund because the one year limitations period would have cut that off but it's first met lives since it was known eight months afterwards you probably could have  on for years because the i r s agents are juggling multiple audit and so has met life stood there during the two thousand and three amnesty reporting period didn't know well first of all it couldn't it didn't have the information to make audience would metlife have benefited from the amnesty period since those tax returns were during the amnesty period if i understand the question correctly if with met life had been able to  liability was going to be and pay it in yes it would have been ahead because i believe as one of you pointed out maybe it was you your honor there would have been a bait munt of the interest on the amnesty payment  said under those circumstances the amnesty program doesn't apply to me they would have taken advantage of i guess if they had if the facts were different and met life had had enough to know you know what its tax liability was going to be yes it probably would have had a motivation to come forward say here's the number and you know work at the abatement of the interest and penalties later that there were still no variables my contention is that metlife did not you know that that the act applied to known tax liabilities and metlife did not have the information to make a good faith estimate of what its federal change tax liability was going to be it would have been guessing at a number and so it wasn't required under the language of the two thousand and three amnesty act itself shredded figgy and the president of the eighty four act and for that matter you know the gloss that the two thousand and ten amnesty have puts on this because remember in two thousand and ten the general assembly i am i going too far yes done please a court like to first start by addressing justice thomas and just heiser john q public hypothetical and i think what has to be remembered here is the good faith estimate regulation functions no differently in the context of amnesty than it does normally when there is no in the city the ordinary taxpayer has to engage in a good faith estimate process in determining what his potential liability will be at the time the original returns to that exact same process as what the department required of all taxpayers during the amnesty period so when metlife says that it would just be making sort of a random guess and could have no way of making an educated as timid of what  like ability would be then the question arises well how does it make its estimate when the original return is due because the exact same process is what the department required of taxpayers during amnesty with respect to the legislative intent argument that he's making the  assessment schmidt had one statement that said all taxes do means those taxes that are suskind do but we contend that that was only over dictum and the reason that it's obiter dictum is because the statement had no bearing on the resolution of the case the case never dealt with when taxes become due and in fact if you dissect that statement out of the opinion nothing about the opinion changes the holding doesn't change the analysis to change and therefore if you could knock out schmidt and you could knock out figgy then there is no basis i think it's also particularly unpersuasive to believe that the legislature some fifteen years after the schmidt in the figgy case would have picked up on this one off the cuff statement that's just dictum in schmidt and recognize that as the interpretation of all taxes due in the one nine hundred eighty four act i mean it seems more reasonable for the legislature to interpret similar words in various provisions here section six on one day similar to what all taxes do should mean in the income tax act meaning the legislature knew knew how it defined all taxes due in section six so when they say it's more persuasive to believe that the legislature would have given the same language in the embassy act a similar interpretation as opposed to believing the legislature would pick up on one off the cuff statement of victims some fifteen years prior to the passage of the amnesty act moreover there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for why the department did not provide for the good faith estimate regulation in one hundred eighty four but did provide for the good faith estimate regulation in two thousand and three the reason for that is the amnesty acts are different both use the language all taxes do but if we look at the incentive structure in the one thousand nine hundred four act it's different than the incentive structure in the because there really was no requirement to participate in this tea in the sense there's no punishment if you don't participate now we fast forward to two thousand and three and we have a different incentive structure the legislature now provides for one hundred percent abatement of interest instead of fifty percent abatement of interest it provides for a two hundred percent double interest for nonparticipation instead of no penalty for nonparticipation so what the department is doing it looked at what the legislature did in one thousand nine hundred four and it compares to two thousand and three and it sees the legislature is trying to incentivize an increase in taxpayer participation one way to increase taxpayer participation is to allow taxpayers who have an assessed liabilities to also participate in amnesty and therefore we see the good faith estimate requirement in two thousand and three because that will allow taxpayers with on the sly bill be supported amnesty even though we don't see the same regulation in one thousand nine hundred four so there's a perfectly reasonable explanation court there held that there was no logical explanation for how a taxpayer who does not know the precise amount of liability can make a good faith estimate but we keep returning back to the fact that in the john coupon hypothetical we're dealing with the exact same process that's required in the absence of amnesty all taxpayers have a duty to estimate what their taxes are and pay that properly reportable amount of taxes even if there is no amnesty program in play now when there's an amnesty program the exact same process is required by all taxpayers to make that good faith estimate that they always make on the date the return is to the regulations actually do comport with the plain terms of the industry act in fact the appe invalidated the regulations on the premise that tax becomes due on the date of the assessment sure we contend that of tax is actually due on the date of assessment then the regulations don't comport with the end of the act and that's why the fundamental question in this case is when this tax become do we contend the tax does not become due on the date of the assessment it becomes due on the date the return is two so if this court holds the taxes due on the date the return is true then the regulations are consistent with the embassy act because by the time of the embassy period metlife owed back taxes because the taxes became do prior to the industry period on the date the return was  due with respect to the argument that the amnesty act states that failure to pay all taxes due within the embassy period will result in the invalidation of all amnesty for any amount that may be paid by met life as part of a good faith estimate that's just an incorrect statement of law the invalidation provision of price to only if the taxpayer does not pay all taxes due after making good faith estimate payment and  short changing that amount so that's probably a very complicated way to say so let me clear it up invalidation provision applies in this context you will back taxes and then you make a good faith estimate of what you owe during the amnesty period but suppose you come up short while you get a basement of interest for everything that you paid and you get double interest for the amount you came up short now you'll be assessed the double interest and the shortfall if you fail to pay that that assessment the doubling from the shortfall only then will you lose all the benefits of amnesty so if you make the payment and you receive the hundred percent abatement of interest but you still come up short on the total amount of the back taxes  you still have an opportunity to pay the shortfall and the double interest without losing amnesty that you received for the amount that you paid with respect to the refund argument the metlife makes  had made a good faith estimate and overpaid that really is baseless because they would have had more than enough time to file a refund claim and as the appellate court has recently held in another case the refund limitations period is interpreted as being two years not simply one year so the department based on the supreme court precedent would apply the two year limitations provision so again because all taxes do is not