Case Name: Department of Taxation, Appellant, vs. Ansul Chemical Company, Respondent
Court: Wisconsin Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Wisconsin
Decision Date: 1951-11-06
Citations: 260 Wis. 96
Docket Number: 
Parties: Department of Taxation, Appellant, vs. Ansul Chemical Company, Respondent.
Judges: Martin and Broadfoot, JJ., took no part.
Reporter: Wisconsin Reports
Volume: 260
Pages: 96–108

Head Matter:
Department of Taxation, Appellant, vs. Ansul Chemical Company, Respondent.
October 12
November 6, 1951.
For the appellant there were briefs-by the Attorney General and Harold H. Persons and E. Weston Wood, assistant attorneys general, and oral argument by Mr. Persons and Mr. Wood.
For the respondent there was a brief by Toebaas, Hart, Kraege & Jackman of Madison, and Eastman, Rose & Faller of Marinette, and oral argument by W. L. Jackman.

Opinion:
Brown, J.
The department's assessment and a portion of its argument was made upon the ground that Ansul had made sales the income from which was apportionable to Wisconsin and controlled by sec. 71.02 (3) (d) 3, Stats. 1943, but at the hearing before the board of tax appeals and its subsequent appeals it has attempted to sustain and increase the amount of its assessment upon a second theory, which is that Ansul made sales not for itself but as an agent for Kinetic. In the department's later view the transaction is between the customer and Kinetic, through the solicitation of Ansul, and the income in question is not profit on a sale but is a commission which, either as compensation for personal services or as miscellaneous income, in its entirety follows the residence of the recipient for income-tax purposes, under the provisions of sec. 71.02 (3) (c), Stats. 1943.
It may be said at once that there is much evidence to support the-department's theory. Ansul and Kinetic had a contract which designated Ansul as a sales agent for Freon. The other provisions of the contract are consistent with that relationship and throughout the period under discussion all invoices and acknowledgments made out by Kinetic refer to Ansul as agent-trustee. The contract also provides that Kinetic was to bill the customer and, if necessary, Ansul was to assist in making the collection. If the customer did not pay Kinetic promptly Kinetic might charge the shipment back to Ansul and withhold the amount of the bill from Ansul's other commissions until Kinetic had recovered its loss, whereupon it would assign the delinquent account to Ansul. This contractual procedure was abandoned, however, and Ansul contends that it became a vendor on its own account by ordering Freon in its own name and paying for it with its own funds so that Kinetic's sole concern about the transaction was to ship as Ansul directed.
This is clearly a matter where either conclusion finds a basis in the record but ours is the one reached 'by the board of tax appeals and by the circuit court. Notwithstanding the terms of the contract nor what the parties could or might have done under it, in actual practice, as the record shows, the customer directed his order to Ansul at Marinette and received a confirmation that Ansul at Marinette had sold him a quantity of Freon. There is no reference to Kinetic in this correspondence. Then, within thirty days from the time when Kinetic made the shipment, as Ansul directed, Kinetic billed Ansul for all such shipments during the period and Ansul remitted to Kinetic whether or not the customer had then paid the bill which Ansul had sent him in Ansul's own name. About one half of the money sent by Ansul to Kinetic was from Ansul.'s own treasury, before Ansul had received anything from the customer. We conclude that Ansul bought and paid for Freon and the sale to the consumer was by this taxpayer and not by Kinetic.
The strength of Ansul's evidence in establishing its position as a vendor, however, defeats its contention that it was not transacting business in Wisconsin in respect to such sales. It relies on United States Glue Co. v. Oak Creek (1915), 161 Wis. 211, 153 N. W. 241, in which we said, page 218, that "The income derived from goods which were produced and purchased outside of'the state and shipped, either directly or by way of plaintiff's factory at Carrollville [Wis.], to plaintiff's branch houses and thence sold and delivered to customers without the state, is clearly a separable class of plaintiff's business. Such business is transacted and located without the state, excepting incidental management from and accounting for the result thereof to plaintiff's principal office at Carrollville. . . ." Ansul's activities are much more than those of the home office in the Glue Co. Case, supra, where the taxpayer owned stocks of goods in branch offices in other states and the customer's order was there accepted and filled without the intervention of the home office. The Glue Company's Wisconsin office gave incidental management to the branch's business and there was accounting by the branch to it, but the home office did not participate in the sales which produced the income. Not so, in the instant case. The activities of the Wisconsin office which Ansul relies on to show it was a vendor go far beyond the limits of the incidental management of a branch's business. They are an important part of Ansul's sale to the customer and must certainly be construed as business transacted in Wisconsin, through the Marinette office, and productive of the income in question. The amount of such income, then, apportionable to Wisconsin is to be determined by the application of sec. 71.02 (3) (d) 3, Stats. 1943.
By the Court. — Judgment reversed and cause remanded with directions to enter a judgment reversing the decision and order of the Wisconsin board of tax appeals, which judgment shall direct the said board to enter an order affirming the additional assessment as originally determined by the Department of Taxation.