Court Opinion

ID: 9702406
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:10:37.94875+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:37.201414
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Justice
(concurring specially).
The United States Supreme Court has not yet decided the constitutionality of a corporate income tax formula which apportions net income of a unitary corporation based solely on the geographical distribution of sales. Although the Court has said “the geographical distribution of a corporation’s sales is, by itself, of dubious significance in indicating the locus [of either a corporation’s sources of income or the social costs which it generates],” it has expressly refrained from taking “any position on the constitutionality of a state income tax based on the sales factor alone.” However, the Court has noted “the factors alluded to by this Court in justifying apportionment measures constitutionally challenged in the past lend little support to the use of an exclusively sales-oriented approach.” General Motors Corporation v. District of Columbia, 380 U.S. 553, 561, 85 S.Ct. 1156, 1161, 14 L.Ed.2d 68, 73-74 (1965). In view of these statements by the Supreme Court in its most recent case touching on the subject, it seems reasonable to conclude that the constitutionality of Iowa’s apportionment formula is open to question.
Moreover, I do not believe the General Motors case is wholly distinguishable on the basis suggested by the majority. Nevertheless, I agree with the majority that the case is not dispositive of the constitutional issues we face in this case. Further, under existing precedent of the Supreme Court and this court, I agree that Moorman did not establish the unconstitutionality of the Iowa apportionment formula either on its face or as applied here under the state due process clause and the federal due process and commerce clauses. Finally, I do not agree with the Director’s view of his duty under Code § 422.33(2) but do not believe he breached his duty under the present record.
I. The problem addressed by the Court in General Motors was one of statutory interpretation. Hence the case did not involve principles of constitutional adjudication which implicate not only the heavy burden which must be met in demonstrating invalidity of a statute but also the distinction between invalidity of a statute on its face and as applied. See United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 80 S.Ct. 519, 4 L.Ed.2d 524 (1960). A statute is not unconstitutional on its face unless it is unconstitutional in every conceivable state of facts; it is ordinarily not unconstitutional as applied unless it is unconstitutional as applied in the specific factual situation before the court. The significance of this distinction is reflected in the position of the dissenters in General Motors in the court of appeals. They did not dispute the constitutionality of the single-factor formula on its face. See District of Columbia v. General Motors Corporation, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 381, 336 F.2d 885, 902-904 (1964); see also Smoot Sand and Gravel Corp. v. District of Columbia, 104 U.S.App.D.C. 292, 261 F.2d 758, 763 (1958) (“ ‘And the gross receipts formula has been in operation too long and upheld in the courts too frequently to be attacked as unfair or unreasonable per se or in the abstract.’ ”). To be unconstitutional on its face the formula would have to be unconstitutional all of the time, not just some of the time.
In General Motors, the Supreme Court based its decision on resolution of the issue whether the district tax commissioners acted within their statutory authority when they adopted a singlefactor sales formula to determine the portion of corporate net income subject to the franchise tax. Two statutory directives existed. One required that the tax be on the portion of net income “ ‘fairly attributable to any trade or business carried on or engaged in within the District * * *The other provided that the net income derived from the trade or business of any corporation “ ‘carried on or engaged in both within and without the District * * * be deemed to be income from sources within and without the Dis*756trict.’ ” General Motors, supra, 380 U.S. at 554-555, 85 S.Ct. at 1157, 14 L.Ed.2d at 70. In holding that the single-factor formula was inconsistent with these statutory directives, the Court relied on the fact that the formula would not apportion income to non-sales income-producing activities outside the District. By statutory mandate, net income from District sales had to be considered the product in part of outside sources. Yet the sales factor formula would not apportion any income outside the District if all sales were made in the District, even though manufacturing occurred elsewhere.
I do not believe the existence of the second statutory requirement wholly distinguishes General Motors from the present case on the theory this directive is not part of the constitutional standard. Of course, the first statutory requirement is identical to the constitutional mandate under the due process and commerce clauses that a tax be fairly apportioned to commerce carried on within the taxing jurisdiction. See Northwestern States Portland Cement Co. v. Minnesota, 358 U.S. 450, 79 S.Ct. 357, 3 L.ed.2d 421 (1959); Annot., 34 L.Ed.2d 749, 765. I believe the second requirement is part of the constitutional standard when non-sales income-producing activities do occur outside the taxing jurisdiction. For example, when manufacturing activity occurs outside the jurisdiction, I believe profit realized upon sale of the manufactured goods in the taxing jurisdiction must be deemed to arise from that activity as well as from the sale. This is as basic as the principle of contradictions. A stick cannot have only one end. Similarly, income cannot be isolated from the capital or labor, or both, which produce the product or service which is sold. This is a matter of self-evident fact rather than a matter of “economic theory” as suggested by the Director in this case.
This fact has been consistently recognized by the Supreme Court. See Stratton’s Independence v. Howbert, 231 U.S. 399, 34 S.Ct. 136, 58 L.Ed. 285 (1913). It is basic to the apportionment formula cases. In Underwood Typewriter Co. v. Chamberlain, 254 U.S. 113, 120, 41 S.Ct. 45, 47, 65 L.Ed. 165, 169 (1920), the Court observed, “The profits of the corporation were largely earned by a series of transactions beginning with manufacture in Connecticut and ending with sale in other States. (Emphasis added). The challenge to the apportionment formula failed in Underwood because the taxpayer failed to demonstrate the apportionment formula, based on the geographical situs of real and tangible personal property, reached more than the profits actually earned by the income-producing activities in the taxing state. A different result occurred in Hans Rees’ Sons, Inc. v. North Carolina ex rel. Maxwell, 283 U.S. 123, 51 S.Ct. 385, 75 L.Ed. 879 (1931), precisely because the taxpayer did meet that burden. (“[T]he statutory method, as applied to the appellant’s business for the years in question, operated unreasonably and arbitrarily, in attributing to North Carolina a percentage of income out of all appropriate proportion to the business transacted by the appellant in that state.”) 283 U.S. at 135, 51 S.Ct. at 389, 75 L.Ed. at 908. The constitutional standard is premised on the theory that each transaction from manufacture through sale contributes to the income which is realized, but it puts the heavy burden on the taxpayer to demonstrate what share of his income from a unitary corporation is attributable to activities in the taxing jurisdiction, and further, that the apportionment formula produces a grossly distorted result in those circumstances. Id., 283 U.S. at 133, 51 S.Ct. at 389, 75 L.Ed. at 905 (“The difficulty of making an exact apportionment is apparent and hence, when the state has adopted a method not intrinsically arbitrary, it will be sustained until proof is offered of an unreasonable and arbitrary application in particular cases.”).
Any single-factor formula is thus capable of producing a grossly distorted result because it focuses artificially on only one component of the corporation’s income-producing activities. See, e. g., Norfolk and Western Railway Company v. Missouri State Tax Commission, 390 U.S. 317, 88 S.Ct. 995, 19 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1968). Less danger exists *757that a multiple-factor formula will have that result because it recognizes additional relevant components.
I believe the Supreme Court struck the single-factor sales formula in General Motors because it read the governing statute as requiring adoption by the commissioners of an apportionment formula which would never deny recognition to non-sales income-producing activities which occurred outside the District. The case is distinguishable from the present one because the constitutional standard does not demand as much. Instead, it prohibits use of an apportionment formula which, in a given case, grossly overstates the portion of net income attributable to income-producing activities in the taxing jurisdiction. While this standard makes a single-factor sales formula more susceptible to successful attack in a particular application — for example when all sales occur in the taxing jurisdiction and all manufacturing occurs in another jurisdiction — it does not make a single-factor sales formula unconstitutional in every conceivable circumstance nor does it relieve the taxpayer of his burden to prove unconstitutionality of its application.
In the present case, Moorman did not attempt to prove the amount of its actual net income from Iowa activities in the years involved. Therefore no basis was presented for comparison of the corporation’s Iowa income and the income apportioned to Iowa under the formula. In this era of sophisticated accounting techniques, it should not be impossible for a unitary corporation to prove its actual income from activities in a particular state. However, Moorman showed only that its tax liability would be substantially less if Iowa employed a three-factor apportionment formula. We have no basis to assume that the three-factor formula produced a result equivalent to the corporation’s actual income from Iowa activities. Having failed to establish a basis for comparison of its actual income in Iowa with the income apportioned to Iowa under the single-factor formula, Moorman did not demonstrate that the single-factor formula produced a grossly unfair result. Thus it did not prove unconstitutionality of the formula as applied.
II. We are not limited in our interpretation of the due process clause of Ia.Const. Art. I § 9 by interpretations of the same language in U.S.Const. Amend. 14 by the Supreme Court. Deference to federalism has led the Supreme Court to accord states wide latitude in economic matters. See New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 303, 96 S.Ct. 2513, 2516-2517, 49 L.Ed.2d 511, 516-517 (1976). This factor does not inhibit state courts applying similar state constitutional provisions. In addition, we have the independent right to say what our state constitution means. See Brennan, State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights, 90 Harv.L.Rev. 489 (1977). However, the distinction makes no practical difference in the present case because we have accorded equivalent latitude to the legislature in tax matters under our state constitution. See City of Waterloo v. Selden, 251 N.W.2d 506 (Iowa 1977).
III. I do not believe Moorman’s attack on the single-factor apportionment formula is answered by the Director’s reliance on the frequent statement of the Supreme Court that, because of the practical impossibility of a state’s achieving perfect apportionment, a “rough approximation” is sufficient. See International Harvester Co. v. Evatt, 329 U.S. 416, 67 S.Ct. 444, 447, 91 L.Ed. 390, 395 (1947). This rule does not excuse a state from trying to achieve fairness, nor does it excuse a state from using a different formula in situations where it is demonstrated that an existing formula grossly overreaches.
IV. Similarly, I do not agree with the Director that his power to grant relief under Code § 422.33(2) is limited to situations where application of the sales factor formula would be unconstitutional. I do not understand that the majority opinion approves this interpretation, but does not pass on it. I would disapprove it. The statute does not purport to impose upon the taxpayer a burden of proving unconstitutionality in order to obtain relief from the formula. Instead, he is merely required to file a statement of *758his objections and set forth “such alternative method of allocation and apportionment as he believes to be proper under the circumstances * * *In turn, the Director is not precluded from affording relief except when the taxpayer proves a grossly distorted result will ensue from use of the sales formula. Rather he is empowered to grant relief when he finds the statutory formula “inapplicable and inequitable.” The statute vests the Director with reasonable administrative discretion and manifests a legislative intention that it be exercised. No issue is presented in this case regarding the constitutionality of this delegation of power.
I do not believe Moorman was prejudiced by the Director’s refusal to exercise this discretion in the present case because the record does not show Moorman made an adequate case for its exercise.
I concur in the result.