General Motors Corp. v. Taylor
| Decision Date | 10 June 1991 |
| Parties | GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Dudley W. TAYLOR, Commissioner of Revenue, Defendant-Appellee. 811 S.W.2d 897 |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Frank N. Carney, Evans, Petree, Cobb & Edwards, Memphis, for plaintiff-appellant.
Joe C. Peel, Asst. Atty. Gen., Nashville and Charles W. Burson, Atty. Gen. & Reporter, for defendant-appellee.
This case is before the Court on the complaint filed by General Motors Corporation seeking a refund of corporate excise taxes and the Commissioner of Revenue's motion to dismiss. The chancellor found that the court did not have subject matter jurisdiction of the case and sustained the Commissioner's motion.
The case involves a dispute between the Commissioner and the taxpayer regarding the procedure for judicial review of the Commissioner's action denying the claim for refund. The Commissioner's position, which was accepted by the trial court, is that the claim for refund cannot be prosecuted according to the procedure set forth in T.C.A. Secs. 67-1-1801 et seq., enacted in 1986. The Commissioner insists the taxpayer's remedies are limited to those set forth in T.C.A. Secs. 67-1-901 et seq., which provide that payment under protest is a prerequisite to a suit seeking recovery of the taxes. For purposes of any tax collected or administered by the Commissioner of Revenue, Secs. 67-1-1801 et seq. replaced Secs. 67-1-901 et seq. with respect to taxes "paid on or after January 1, 1986."
Resolution of the case is dependent upon the meaning of the following pertinent portions of T.C.A. Sec. 67-1-1807:
Applicable laws--Conditions precedent for recovery--Conflicting laws.--(a) All taxes paid prior to January 1, 1986, shall be governed by the laws regarding refunds and suits for the recovery of taxes as those laws existed in 1985; ....
(b) All taxes paid on or after January 1, 1986, shall be governed by the laws regarding refunds and suits for the recovery of taxes as set out in this part,....
General Motors filed tax returns for each of the years 1982, 1983, and 1984. Taxes for those years were paid as reported in the returns but were not paid under protest. During 1986 and 1987, the Commissioner audited General Motors' returns for the years 1982, 1983, and 1984. Pursuant to that audit, the Commissioner filed on June 11, 1987, an assessment in the amount of $82,522, consisting of $47,284 in taxes and $35,238 in interest. General Motors paid the assessed amount on June 29, 1987 and, on that same date, filed a claim for refund for tax years 1982, 1983, and 1984. The Commissioner denied the claim for refund on July 17, 1987, and suit was filed in the Chancery Court of Davidson County on December 8, 1987.
The assessment was the result of the following audit adjustments made in the franchise and excise tax liability of General Motors Corporation for the years in question:
Year Liability as shown on Liability per Audit Increase or
GM's return (decrease) per
audit
1982 $ 46,169 $ 46,117 ($52)
1983 670,191 586,549 (101,642)
1984 1,274,034 1,423,012 148,978
Combined $1,990,394 $2,037,678 $47,284
General Motors' return for 1982 showed an overpayment of $230,715, which amount was claimed by the corporation as a credit against taxes due on its 1983 return. As a result of the Commissioner's audit reducing the tax liability for 1983, the 1982 overpayment plus taxes paid for 1983 resulted in an overpayment for 1983, which was applied to the liability for 1984. The $47,284 assessment was stated by the Commissioner to be related to the 1984 tax year. General Motors' claim for refund stated that the claim was for 1982, 1983, and 1984 tax years, and the editorial statement and the arithmetic calculations base the claim for refund upon a 1982 net operating loss carryover.
General Motors' complaint seeks judicial review of the Commissioner's denial of its claim for refund. The Commissioner's motion to dismiss denies that the court has jurisdiction of the subject matter on the ground that payment under protest is a "condition precedent" to seeking recovery of taxes paid prior to 1986. The Commissioner's position is that the taxpayer's suit seeks "the recovery of taxes paid without protest in 1983 and 1984." The taxpayer's position is that the $47,284 in taxes (plus interest of $35,238) paid in 1987, plus the $101,694 overpayment applied to its 1982 and 1983 tax liability, are taxes "paid after January 1, 1986," within the meaning of the statutes.
The issue presented requires a determination by the Court of the statute applicable to the assessment of additional taxes for tax years prior to 1986 made as the result of an audit of those years subsequent to 1986. This case obviously involves a transitional situation not specifically addressed by the statute. However, the Court...
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Chuck's Package Store v. City of Morristown
...disputed state taxes collected or administered by the commissioner of revenue before seeking a refund. See Gen. Motors Corp. v. Taylor , 811 S.W.2d 897, 899 (Tenn. 1991) (construing together Tennessee Code Annotated sections 67–1–1807(b) and 67–1–901(b) ).Here, the city of Morristown and th......
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Comdata Network, Inc. v. State, Dept. of Revenue
...the recovery of any tax paid prior to January 1, 1986, shall be allowed unless such tax was paid under protest. In General Motors Corp. v. Taylor, 811 S.W.2d 897 (Tenn.1991), the Court construed the controlling provisions of the statutes, T.C.A. §§ 67-1-901, 67-1-1807, and held that the lan......