Tag

Unitary Business

Browsing

In an order released in July 2021, the Illinois Tax Tribunal denied a taxpayer’s motion for summary judgment in a “unitary business” case, finding that there were disputed issues of fact as to whether the taxpayer was engaged in a unitary business with a company that the taxpayer sold.  See Christopher v. Illinois Dep’t of Rev., 19 TT 131 (Ill. Tax Trib. Nov. 24, 2020, released July 2021).  The taxpayer, T. Christopher Holding Company (“Holding Company”), claimed that it was not unitary with Vogue International, LLC (“Operating Company”), and thus its gain from the sale of Operating Company could not be included in Holding Company’s Illinois business income under U.S. constitutional principles and Illinois law.  However, the Tribunal found that the Illinois Department of Revenue (“Department”) had presented sufficient evidence to establish a disputed issue of material fact that rendered summary judgment on this issue inappropriate.

The Idaho Supreme Court recently affirmed a District Court’s judgment that the gain from the sale of a 78.54% membership interest in a limited liability company did not constitute “business income” under Idaho Code section 63-3027.  In Noell Indus. Inc. v. Idaho State Tax Comm’n, Docket No. 46941 (Idaho 2020), the court determined that “this type of gain does not meet the definition of ‘business income’ under either the transactional test or functional test (including the unitary business test),” and was therefore not apportionable income.

Following several failed attempts by Oregon voters and the Oregon legislature to pass a gross receipts tax (see Not Dead Yet: Oregon Voters Propose Another Gross Receipts Tax in the Wake of Market-Based Sourcing and Oregon Proposes “Gross” New Tax),  Governor Kate Brown signed Enrolled House Bill 3427, Oregon’s corporate activity tax (CAT), into law on May 16, 2019.

The Illinois Department of Revenue has big plans this holiday season to bring different types of unitary businesses that use different apportionment formulas together under a single, combined Illinois corporate income tax return. Like many states, Illinois corporate income taxpayers are generally required to file a unitary combined corporate income tax return.  This combined reporting method aggregates in one tax return the income, deductions and apportionment factors generated by commonly owned corporations operating as a unitary group.