Court Opinion

ID: 9747110
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:57:13.846121+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:20.233010
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice
(dissenting).
The record plainly reveals that taxpayer was “carrying on . for gain or profit within the City [the] business” * of investment in real and personal property. Therefore all income derived from that business, including the income derived from its rental property, was subject to the Philadelphia Mercantile License Tax. Cf. Coventry Hills v. Tax Review Board, 437 Pa. 259, 263 A.2d 348 (1970); Kungsgaten, Inc. v. Philadelphia, 422 *254Pa. 209, 220 A.2d 803 (1966). The reasoning of President Judge Bowman’s dissenting opinion to the Commonwealth Court order is most persuasive:
“In my opinion a corporation which has for its sole corporate purpose the production of income or gain from property owned by it is engaged in business within the meaning of the taxing ordinance in question. That it performs and accomplishes its sole purpose for existence through the services of investment counselors, brokers or other independent contractors neither diminishes nor enlarges its involvement. I distinguish A. H. Geuting Company v. City of Philadelphia, 1 Pa.D. & C.2d 341 (1954), as did the Supreme Court in Tax Review v. Brine Corporation, 414 Pa. 488, 200 A.2d 883 (1964), which said that the [taxpayer in A. H. Geuting Company] did nothing but conserve a piece of real estate retained by it after selling its business. Appellee here had a similar experience but then chose to change its corporate charter to an investment purpose and thereafter engaged in that restated purpose. Surely it was not then merely conserving property previously sold nor could it be appropriately described as passive with respect to its corporate purpose. The overall objective of the corporation leads me to conclude that appellee is engaged in business. I would therefore, affirm the lower court.”
I would reverse the order of the Commonwealth Court in its entirety and reinstate the order of the court of common pleas.
EAGEN, J., joins in this dissent.

 Philadelphia, Pa.Code of General Ordinances § 19-1001.