Court Opinion

ID: 9680432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:31:48.800402+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:28.527706
License: Public Domain

WELLIVER, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
Suppose that A and B are identical corporations. Each does the same amount of business in Missouri. A is a member of a group of corporations that files a consolidated federal income tax return, and B is not. B files a separate Missouri return, and A does the same because it does not meet the statutory criteria for filing a consolidated Missouri return. Section 143.431(1), RSMo 1978,1 requires corporations to use their federal taxable income as the basis for computing their Missouri taxable income. Section 143.431(3)(4) states that if a corporation files separately in Missouri but has no separate federal return, its federal taxable income shall be determined hypothetically as if it had filed a separate federal return. The basis for A’s Missouri return thus would be what A’s federal return would have been if A had filed as a separate entity rather than as a member of an affiliated group. The principal opinion holds that in this situation B may deduct for Missouri purposes the entire amount of federal income tax due on its separate federal return but that A may not do so. In other words, the principal opinion holds that both A and B must use a separate federal return as the basis for computing Missouri taxable income but that only B can use it for computing the Missouri deduction for federal income tax liability.
I fail to see any rational basis for this distinction. The statute requires corporations that cannot, or do not, file a consolidated Missouri return to use a separate federal income tax return, whether actual or hypothetical, as the basis for computing Missouri taxable income so that all such corporations are treated equally. Section 143.171, which provides the deduction for federal income tax liability, makes no distinction between an actual separate federal return and a hypothetical one. The use of a hypothetical separate federal return, like the use of an actual one, consequently must extend to all aspects of the computation of Missouri taxable income, including the determination of federal income tax liability that is based upon that return. To hold otherwise is to read into the statute a disparity that the statute itself is designed to avoid.
The principal opinion’s argument regarding classification is unpersuasive. We do not deal here with a distinction between those corporations that may file consolidated returns in Missouri and those that may not. All corporations may file separately in Missouri, even if they are entitled to file consolidated state returns. See § 143.-431(3)(1). We deal here with a difference in treatment among those corporations that file separately. That difference is based solely upon the fact that some of those corporations, such as appellants here and A in the example above, file as part of an affiliated group at the federal level. The apparent justification for this distinction is that a corporation somehow gains a benefit from being part of an affiliated group. That premise is not necessarily true, but whether it is true or not is immaterial. We are concerned with what happens at the state, and not the federal, level. Nothing empowers Missouri to impose a greater state income tax on a corporation that is part of an affiliated group simply because the federal tax liability of the group as a whole might happen to be less than that corporation’s federal tax liability would have been had it filed separately.2 There is *684no justification for employing two different standards for taxation of corporations within the same class. All corporations that file separate returns in Missouri should be treated equally.
The judgment of the circuit court should be reversed.

. All statutory references are to RSMo 1978.

. Federal law provides that all members of an affiliated group of corporations filing a consolidated return shall be severally liable for the *684entire amount of tax assessed against the group as a whole. See 26 C.F.R. § 1.1502-6(a) (1982).