Opinion ID: 1351725
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Effect of Regulatory Scheme

Text: A court will construe statutes relating to the same subject matter together to maintain a consistent and sensible scheme. See Gottsch Feeding Corp. v. State, 261 Neb. 19, 621 N.W.2d 109 (2001). The same rule applies in interpreting regulations. The court found the remainder of the regulatory scheme supported the Department's interpretations. We disagree and conclude that the regulatory scheme supports the taxpayers' interpretation of § 005.01B(3). In determining the meaning of due date, the district court relied primarily on 316 Neb. Admin. Code, ch. 24, §§ 006.01 and 007.02C (1998). The first sentence of § 006.01 provides that [t]he due date for Nebraska Corporation Income Tax Return, Form 1120N, is the 15th day of March following the close of the calendar year. This language appears to support the Department's argument that the due date referred to in § 005.01B(3) is a taxpayer's original deadline for filing its return. The first sentence of § 007.02C provides that [i]f an extension of time for payment of a tax is granted, the tax shall be paid on or before the expiration of the period of the extension.... While § 007.02C does not involve the filing of a tax return, it does, as noted by the district court, suggest that the expiration of the period of the extension and a due date are different. However, another regulation suggests that March 15 is not the only possible due date. The procedure for filing a corporate extension is set out in 316 Neb. Admin. Code, ch. 24, § 007.01 (1998), which provides: A corporate taxpayer may obtain an automatic extension of seven months for filing its return, provided that Form 7004N is filed on or before the prescribed due date for the return and provided that the amount of tentatively computed tax liability is paid on or before the original due date for filing the corporation income tax return. (Emphasis supplied.) Presumably, the original deadline for filing an income tax return is the original due date, and the use of that term suggests not only that other types of due dates exist, but that the Department knows how to draw a distinction between the original due date and other types of due dates. Moreover, § 006.01 (the same section that states the due date for filing is March 15) provides that [t]he corporate taxpayer shall pay the entire amount of tax on or before the prescribed due date, without regard to any extension granted for filing the return. (Emphasis supplied.) Similarly, the second sentence of § 007.02C (the same regulation that suggests a distinction between a due date and the expiration of the period of the extension) provides that [i]nterest will be due on the tax payment from the original date prescribed for payment until the date the payment was actually made, regardless of any extension of time. (Emphasis supplied.) The italicized language in both of these regulations suggests the Department knew how to use language that would limit the effect of an extension. The Department used this limiting language in other regulationsthat an extension would have no effectbut did not do so in § 005.01B(3), which shows that the Department intended the presumption in § 005.01B(3) to include extended deadlines. See Creighton St. Joseph Hosp. v. Tax Eq. & Rev. Comm., 260 Neb. 905, 620 N.W.2d 90 (2000). In Creighton St. Joseph Hosp., we were asked to decide whether the filing fee for an appeal from a county board of equalization to the Nebraska Tax Equalization and Review Commission was a jurisdictional requirement. We noted that in other appeal statutes, the Legislature had used explicit and clear language to establish that a filing fee was jurisdictional, but that in the statute in question, the Legislature had not used the same or similar language. We concluded that the other statutes demonstrated that the Legislature knew how to make a filing fee jurisdictional and that its failure to include similar language demonstrated its intent not to make the filing fee a jurisdictional requirement. If the Department did not want § 005.01B(3) to apply to extended deadlines, it could have adopted the term original due date from § 007.01 and used it in § 005.01B(3) instead of just due date. In the alternative, it could have adopted the language in § 007.02C and clarified that the due date of the return and the last day of the filing period as used in § 005.01B(3) would be determined without regard to any extension of time. Just as in Creighton St. Joseph Hosp., the absence of this language in § 005.01B(3) indicates that the Department did not intend to exclude extended deadlines from the regulation's scope.