No. 19-921

John M. Paz v. Director, New Jersey Division of Taxation

Lower Court: New Jersey
Docketed: 2020-01-24
Status: Denied
Type: Paid
Amici (1)Response Waived
Tags: allocation apportionment commerce-clause corporate-income-tax due-process multistate-business state-taxation unitary-business unitary-business-principle
Key Terms:
DueProcess Privacy JusticiabilityDoctri
Latest Conference: 2020-03-20
Question Presented (AI Summary)

Whether a state can allocate the entire gain from the sale of a unitary business's assets to itself for taxation purposes

Question Presented (OCR Extract)

QUESTIONS PRESENTED In Mobil Oil Corp v. Commissioner of Taxation of Vermont, 445 U.S. 425, 444 (1980), this Court stated that, for State income tax purposes, taxation by allocation and taxation by apportionment are “theoretically incommensurate.” The questions presented are: 1. Whether it is constitutionally permissible for the domiciliary State of a corporation engaged in a multistate unitary business to allocate to itself for taxation purposes the entire gain realized by the corporation on the sale of all the assets of the unitary business, given the fact that the corporation apportioned the gain among over 20 States where the business was conducted, in accordance with this Court’s decisions in Mobil Oil Corp., supra; Container Corp. of America v. Franchise Tax Board, 463 U.S. 159, 169 (1983); Allied-Signal, Inc. v. Director, Division of Taxation, 504 U.S. 768 (1992), and MeadWestvaco Corp. v. Illinois Department of Revenue, 553 U.S. 16 (2008). 2. Whether a nonresident individual taxpayer, as the sole shareholder of an S corporation conducting a multistate unitary business, may be personally taxed by the corporation’s domiciliary State on 100% of the gain realized on the sale of all the assets of the business, even though the same gain was taxed on an apportioned basis by the other States where the business was conducted and only 25% of the gain was apportioned to the domiciliary State. (i)

Docket Entries

2020-03-23
Petition DENIED.
2020-02-26
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 3/20/2020.
2020-02-24
Brief amicus curiae of Tax Executives Institute, Inc. filed.
2020-02-20
Waiver of right of respondent Director, Division of Taxation to respond filed.
2020-01-17
Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due February 24, 2020)
2019-12-06
Application (19A635) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from December 19, 2019 to January 21, 2020, submitted to Justice Alito.
2019-12-06
Application (19A635) granted by Justice Alito extending the time to file until January 21, 2020.

Attorneys

Director, Division of Taxation
Michael J. DuffyNJ Dept. Law and Public Safety, Division of Law, Respondent
John M. Paz
Jerome B. LibinEversheds Sutherland (US) LLP, Petitioner
Tax Executives Institute, Inc.
Alicia Pilar MataTax Executives Institute, Inc., Amicus