Opinion ID: 2101506
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Are Repurchase Agreements Deposits?

Text: Under Ind. Code Ann. § 6-5.1-2-1 (West 1989) (repealed effective Nov. 10, 1988), Indiana residents and domiciliaries owed an intangibles tax for the exercise of certain privileges in regard to intangibles. Intangible was defined to include a list of fifteen categories such as debentures, deposits of money, loan accounts, debt instruments with interest coupons, written contracts for the payment of money, and instruments bearing interest for the benefit of the holder of that instrument or the holder of another instrument. Ind. Code Ann. § 6-5.1-1-1 (West 1989). The applicability of the tax is not challenged. The legislature exempted a number of items from the intangibles tax, including deposits or certificates of deposit in banks in Indiana. Ind. Code Ann. § 6-5.1-5-7(15) (West 1989). To determine whether HWI's repurchase agreement transactions were exempt from the tax, we must first consider the meaning of the term deposit. A broad definition of this word would encompass many of the things of value which customers take to the bank and leave there, such as stocks for trust accounts or money to pay real estate taxes. A narrow definition would cover only those items defined in a particular statute. Because the Intangibles Tax Act does not define deposit, we look to sources beyond the text of the act itself. HWI contends that we should apply the definition of deposit in the Bank Tax Act. [4] The bank tax definition applies with equal force to the intangibles tax, HWI contends, because both acts were passed on the same day by the General Assembly and because the acts relate to the same subject. According to HWI, Lutz v. Arnold (1935), 208 Ind. 480, 500, 193 N.E. 840, 848, requires this Court to construe the two acts together. In Lutz, this Court stated: Statutes which relate to the same thing, or to the same subject, person or object are in pari materia and it is presumed that such acts are imbued with the same spirit and actuated by the same policy, ... and they should be construed together as if parts of the same act, ... to determine their affect... . This applies with peculiar force to statutes passed at the same session of the legislature... . Id. (quoting State ex rel. Baker v. Grange (1929), 200 Ind. 506, 509, 165 N.E. 239, 240). The holding in Lutz is not as broad as HWI contends. In Lutz this Court construed the acts together in resolving a constitutional challenge to the exclusion of entities such as banks from the intangibles tax. 208 Ind. at 500, 193 N.E. at 848. Because banks are taxed under the Bank Tax Act, the Court held that their exclusion from the intangibles tax was not the result of an arbitrary and unreasonable classification. Id. For purposes of the taxation scheme generally, therefore, the two acts relate to the same subject and were appropriately construed together. Lutz does not require construing similar provisions of two acts as though they were the same, even two acts held to be in pari materia, when those provisions are driven by different legislative policies. Cf. Board of Comm'rs of LaGrange County v. Cutler (1855), 6 Ind. 354 (two provisions related to same subject, passed at same legislative session and construed in pari materia held driven by different legislative intents). In this case, for example, we must determine the meaning of deposit in that part of the intangibles act creating exemptions for those otherwise subject to the tax. Banks, of course, were exempted not only from paying intangibles tax on deposits, but from the intangibles tax altogether. Ind. Code Ann. § 6-5.1-5-6 (West 1989). Their tax liability derives from the Bank Tax Act and is based not on the value of non-exempt intangibles, but rather on the value of deposits. Ind. Code Ann. § 6-5-10-3 (West 1989). The fact that taxable deposits form the primary basis of bank tax liability is strong evidence that the term deposit is used in the Bank Tax Act in a broader sense than it is in the Intangibles Act where it is used to describe an exemption available to those whose tax liability is calculated with reference to intangibles not so exempted. Cf. Ralston v. Ryan (1940), 217 Ind. 482, 29 N.E.2d 202 (finding no evidence that term qualified licensed engineer used differently in two distinct acts.) Moreover, if the legislature had intended for deposit to carry a meaning as broad as the Bank Tax Act's deposit, it would not have specified in the Intangibles Tax Act that certificates of deposit in Indiana banks also were exempt since such certificates are included in the Bank Tax Act's definition of deposit. Finally, we think it appropriate to limit the meaning of deposit to its ordinary and usual sense because ambiguous exemption statutes are strictly construed in favor of taxation and against the party seeking exemption. This firmly established principle of statutory construction is based upon the notion that an exemption from taxation shifts the tax burden to taxpayers who fall outside the exempted class. Orr v. Baker (1853), 4 Ind. 86. In Orr, we explained: Under our institutions, there is no good reason why one species of property, or one class of persons, should be exempt from the common burdens which, for the common good, all ought equally to bear. Hence these exemptions, as they are contrary to common right, are not to be favored by the courts. Id. at 88. The quintessential example of a bank deposit is a checking or savings account. A deposit is commonly understood to mean the placement of money in a bank for safekeeping, subject to the order of the depositor, and payable at any time in an equal sum. E.g., Warren v. Nix, 97 Ark. 374, 135 S.W. 896 (1911); Houston v. Braden, 37 S.W. 467 (Tx.Civ.App. 1896); see also 10 Am.Jur.2d Banks § 360 (1963) (deposit consists of delivery of money or funds into the possession of the bank, whose property the deposit becomes, in exchange for a credit of the amount represented by the deposit, against which credit the depositor may draw in the usual course of a bank's business). Although one segment of the repurchase transactions between HWI and the bank involved a deposit of money with the bank, viewing the economic realities of the transactions as a whole, see Union Sec. Inc. v. Merchants' Travel & Savs. Co. (1933), 205 Ind. 127, 185 N.E. 150, it is evident the parties intended them to be an investment vehicle outside the scope of a traditional deposit. [5] Once the parties incorporated a sale and repurchase of government securities into their funds transfers, the transactions became something other than deposits as they are commonly and usually understood. We hold that the funds transactions under repurchase agreements between HWI and the bank were not deposits ... in banks in Indiana for purposes of exemption from the intangibles tax, and that the Tax Court's judgment to the contrary is clearly erroneous. See Ind.Tax Court Rule 10. Without expounding further on the classification of such transactions, we note that our conclusion accords with the positions of various commentators who have discussed the nature of repurchase agreements. [6] We grant the Department of Revenue's petition for review, vacate the judgment of the Tax Court, and affirm the assessment of the Department. DeBRULER, DICKSON and KRAHULIK, JJ., concur. GIVAN, J., dissents without separate opinion.