Court Opinion

ID: 9755344
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:35:26.791912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:06.398195
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM RAY PRICE, JR., Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent from the majority opinion. The basis of my dissent is simple. Missouri law provides an exemption from sales and use tax for equipment “used directly in manufacturing ... or producing a product”. Section 144.030.2, RSMo. I do not believe that the transmission and distribution of electricity can be artificially distinguished from the generation of the electricity for purposes of defining the manufacturing or production of the “product” subject to the sales and use tax exemption.
The distinction made by the majority is not one expressly stated in the statute. The sales and use tax law makes no specific reference to any generation, transmission, or distribution distinctions. Section 144.030.2 speaks only to the “manufacturing” or “producing” of a “product”.
The majority mistakenly designates the “product”, electricity, as if it were sold raw at the generating plant. Instead, the “product” is the electricity that is sold at the point of use, after it has been transmitted and transformed to a voltage consistent with its use. All of the equipment at issue is necessary to provide the electricity where it is needed and in a voltage that can be used. Electricity simply is not a product that is commonly sold to consumers, either industrial or residential, on a “cash and carry” basis.
Even though some of the utility taxpayers buy electricity generated by others and merely transmit and distribute it to Missouri customers, the integrated plant doctrine is applicable. DST Systems, Inc. v. Director of Revenue, 43 S.W.3d 799 (Mo. banc 2001), is precisely on point.
As stated above, the “product” is not a theoretical analogy or image. The electricity that a consumer buys is delivered to the consumer in usable form. The activities of transforming, transmitting, and distributing the electricity from the plant to the ultimate customer is just as necessary to the “manufacturing” and “producing” of the product as is the generation of the electricity itself. The majority of other jurisdictions that have considered this issue have ruled accordingly. City of Louisville v. Howard, 306 Ky. 687, 208 S.W.2d 522 (1947); Northern States Power Company v. Comm. of Rev., 571 N.W.2d 573 (Minn.1997); Maine Yankee Atomic Power v. State Tax Assessor, 690 A.2d 497 (Me. *7311997); Curry v. Alabama Power Company, 243 Ala. 53, 8 So.2d 521 (1942). Only New York, Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. v. Wanamaker, 286 A.D. 446, 144 N.Y.S.2d 458 (N.Y.App.Div.1955), aff'd, 2 N.Y.2d 764, 157 N.Y.S.2d 972, 139 N.E.2d 150 (1956), and Georgia, Forrester v. North Georgia Elec. Membership Corp., 66 Ga. App. 779, 19 S.E.2d 158, 163-64 (1942), stand apart.1

. The majority cites City of Ames v. State Tax Comm’n, 246 Iowa 1016, 71 N.W.2d 15, 28-29 (Iowa 1955). However, the Supreme Court of Iowa implicitly overruled City of Ames in Linwood Stone Products Co. v. State Dep’t of Revenue, 175 N.W.2d 393 (1970), holding transformers to be equipment directly used in processing tangible property and thus exempting the equipment from a use tax. Also, the majority makes much ado about jurisdictions that, based on their statutory schemes, do not consider electrical generation to be production or manufacturing. United Illuminating Co. v. Groppo, 220 Conn. 749, 601 A.2d 1005, 1008 (1992). These cases simply are not applicable in Missouri where all agree that electrical generation is manufacturing; the only question here is where manufacturing ends.