Court Opinion

ID: 9666355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:11:38.99788+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:26.794978
License: Public Domain

ROBERTSON, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in that portion of the principal opinion which holds that petitioner has no liability for use tax in this case. However, as to that portion of the principal opinion, designated II, which finds that no sales tax is due, I respectfully dissent.
Under the facts of this case, a purchaser in Missouri enters appellant’s store in Missouri, purchases merchandise from appellant, and directs appellant to deliver that item to a third party in another state. In my view, such a transaction is a sale at retail subject to sales tax.
Section 144.010.1(8), RSMo 1986, defines “sale at retail” as “any transfer made by any person engaged in business ... of the ownership of, or title to, tangible personal property to the purchaser for use or consumption and not for resale in any form as tangible personal property, for a valuable consideration_” [Emphasis added.] In State ex rel. Thompson-Stearns-Roger v. Schaffner, 489 S.W.2d 207 (Mo.1973), this Court interpreted Section 144.010.1(8). The Court found that the word “ownership”, when used in conjunction with the word “title”, revealed a legislative intent “to denominate some interest or right other than the so-called ‘bundle of rights’ encompassed by the term ‘title’.” Thus, the court continued,
*177There is no question that the General Assembly in enacting the sales tax law intended to place the burden of the tax upon the person paying the purchase price.... In defining a “purchaser” as the person to whom either “ownership” or “title” is transferred, the legislature must have intended to include not only transactions in which the person who pays the purchase price is the recipient of the legal title to the property, but also to include the myriad of transactions in which the purchase price is paid by one who does not receive technical legal title but who exercises dominion over the property such as by directing who the recipient of such title shall be. No other reasonable explanation for the use of the alternative term appears....
Id. at 215.
In my view, Thompson-Stearns-Roger correctly interprets the law and requires a result contrary to that reached by the majority. It is beyond dispute that when a person enters the business establishment of a Missouri merchant, selects an item of merchandise, pays for it, and directs that the merchandise purchased be delivered to a third party, the purchaser has exercised dominion and control over that merchandise. Dominion and control establish ownership; sales tax is thus due on the transaction under the clear language of Section 144.010.1(8).
The majority’s attempt to distinguish— nay overrule sub silentio — Thompson-Stearns-Roger is not persuasive. The factual differentiation recited does not support the legal distinction the majority draws. Ownership within the meaning of Section 144.010.1(8) does not require that the purchaser obtain unrestricted use of the property at some point in the future. The hallmarks of ownership for purposes of the sales tax are present when a purchaser assumes sufficient control over merchandise to direct its delivery to a third party; when the purchaser assumes ownership of the merchandise, the taxable event which authorizes the imposition of the tax occurs.
While I agree that the decision of the Administrative Hearing Commission regarding the use tax must be reversed, I would affirm the decision of the Administrative Hearing Commission upholding the imposition of the sales tax under these facts. I, therefore, concur in part and dissent in part.