Shell Oil Co. v. Director of Revenue

• Decision Date: 16 June 1987
• Docket Number: No. 68871,68871
• Parties: SHELL OIL COMPANY, Appellant, v. DIRECTOR OF REVENUE, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 178

732 S.W.2d 178

SHELL OIL COMPANY, Appellant, v. DIRECTOR OF REVENUE, Respondent.

No. 68871.

Supreme Court of Missouri En Banc.

June 16, 1987.

Rehearing Denied July 14, 1987.

Richard L. Schnake, David C. Agee, Springfield, for appellant.

William L. Webster, Atty. Gen., Melodie Powell, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jefferson City, for respondent.

BILLINGS, Judge.

Shell Oil Company appeals the decision of the Administrative Hearing Commission, which upheld the assessment against petitioner of St. Louis County sales and transportation sales taxes by respondent Director of Revenue. Initially appellant sought review in the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District. Because the case requires construction of the revenue laws of this state, that Court transferred the cause without opinion to this Court which has exclusive jurisdiction under Mo. Const. art. V, § 3. Affirmed.

The central issue is whether the Director's assessment should be set aside because Shell's sales of aviation fuel at the Lambert airport in St. Louis County are in some way exempt from county sales and transportation sales taxes. Shell's principal contention is that its sales are exempt because it does not maintain a place of business in St. Louis County.

The Director collects, administers, and enforces the various sales tax provisions including properly enacted county sales taxes. Sections 66.610 (authorizing the Director to collect county sales tax) and 94.615, RSMo 1986 (the same as to the county transportation sales tax). The Director assessed Shell for both St. Louis County sales taxes and interest in the total amount of $103,009.53 for the period from March 1, 1978 through February 28, 1981. As permitted under § 621.050, RSMo 1986, Shell appealed the assessment to the Commission. The parties waived a formal hearing and submitted a joint stipulation of facts as well as separate proposed findings of fact, conclusions of law and briefs. The Commission upheld the Director's assessment of the county sales taxes on Shell's sales of aviation fuel at Lambert Airport.

Upon review, the commission's decision "shall be upheld when authorized by law and supported by competent and substantial evidence upon the whole record." Section 621.193, RSMo 1986. The Commission must observe mandatory procedural safeguards and its approval of the questioned agency action must not clearly create a result "contrary to ... the reasonable expectations of the general assembly...." Id. As in the review of other administrative decisions, the evidence must be considered in a light most favorable to the decision, together with all reasonable inferences which support it. See Hermel, Inc. v. State Tax Commission, 564 S.W.2d 888, 894 (Mo. banc 1978). A summary of those facts which support the decision follows:

Shell, a Delaware corporation with its principal office in Houston, Texas, markets petroleum products, including aviation fuel, nationwide. At its Houston offices, Shell has entered into contracts for the sale of aviation fuel to several airlines which operate from Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (Lambert Field) within St. Louis County. These contracts include an estimated gallonage of fuel to be sold to each airline. Shell does not itself own or operate a pipeline, fuel storage facility, or pump at Lambert. Instead, Shell has certain fuel exchange agreements with Amoco Oil Company which allows Shell to fulfill its aviation fuel contracts there. From its Illinois refinery, Amoco delivers fuel to Lambert through a pipeline owned by St. Louis Pipeline Company but operated by yet another entity, Amoco Pipeline Company. Shell has no equity interest in Amoco, St. Louis Pipeline or Amoco Pipeline.

At Lambert Field the fuel passes through a meter owned by Amoco into the storage tanks of Allied Aviation Fueling Company of St. Louis, Inc. Allied employees determine when and how much fuel will be delivered through the pipeline as well as which airline will receive delivery of the fuel. Allied employees measure the quantity of fuel received by "reading" the Amoco meter. Allied delivers a meter ticket reflecting this measurement to each airline customer and sends a copy of the meter ticket to Shell's administrative office in Oak Brook, Illinois, for billing. Allied fully controls the commencement and termination of deliveries through the pipeline and is compensated for its service by the airlines it serves. Shell neither pays Allied nor has any equity interest in or contract with Allied.

Shell's contracts with the airlines and the exchange agreements with Amoco provide that title to the aviation fuel passes from Amoco to Shell and then to the respective airlines as it passes through the Amoco meter at Lambert. Another stipulation states that "Shell has paid and no controversy exists with respect to State sales or use taxes on the sales in question, ..." Despite the parties' failure to specify whether a state sales or state use tax was paid, the Commission concluded that Shell had paid state sales tax on the sales of aviation fuel because taxable sales had taken place in Missouri.

Shell argues that in order to be subject to these taxes it must be operating a "place of business" in St. Louis County. In this, Shell misreads the statutes and focuses improperly on a secondary question. The county sales tax imposes upon all sellers "a tax for the privilege of engaging in the business of selling tangible personal property ... at retail to the extent and in the manner provided in [the State Sales Tax Act] and the rules and regulations of the director of revenue issued pursuant thereto; ..." Section 66.605, RSMo 1986. Similarly, the transportation sales tax is imposed "on the receipts from the sale at retail of all tangible personal property or taxable services at retail within the [county] ..., if such property and services are subject to taxation by the State of Missouri under the [State Sales Tax Act]." Section 94.605.2, RSMo 1986. Therefore, the threshold question is whether any transaction constitutes a sale at retail as defined in Section 144.010, RSMo 1986. This statute has been slightly altered since this case arose but is unchanged in any significant or relevant respect. If and only if the transaction is subject to state sales tax may the county sales taxes apply.

A sale at retail is defined as "any transfer made by any person ... of the ownership of, or title to, tangible personal property to the purchaser, for use or consumption and not for resale in any form as tangible personal property, for a valuable consideration; ...." Section 144.010(8). The attribute then which is determinative of whether a transaction is a taxable sale for purpose of the Missouri sales tax is the transfer of title or ownership. Kurtz Concrete, Inc. v. Spradling, 560 S.W.2d 858, 860 (Mo. banc 1978). Transfer of "[t]itle to goods cannot pass under a contract for sale prior to their identification to the contract...." Section 400.2-401(1) (the Uniform Commercial Code). Subsection 2 continues:

"Unless otherwise explicitly agreed title passes to the buyer at the time and place at which the seller completes his performance with reference to the physical delivery of the goods, ... (a) if the contract requires or authorizes the seller to send the goods to the buyer but does not require him to deliver them at destination, title passes to the buyer at the time and place of shipment; but (b) if the contract requires delivery at destination, title passes on tender there."

The stipulated facts do not detail Shell's exchange agreement with Amoco or its contracts with the airlines except for one salient fact. Title passes at the Amoco meter from Amoco to Shell and then to the airlines. Consequently, Shell's denial of ownership or control of the pipeline or any airport operation is unavailing as to the controlling question of whether this constitutes a sale. For purpose of the state taxing statutes, there is a sale at retail even, as here, if its consummation is only effected through a series of agency relationships.

Most of Shell's argument about a "place of business" is misdirected. Although the sales tax statues, see §§ 66.615.5 and 94.620, RSMo 1986 (using identical language) and the regulations of the Director, see 12 CSR 10-5.545 and 10-5.050, provide that "all retail sales shall be deemed to be consummated at the place of business of the retailer," the purpose of that statutory presumption is not implicated. "The obvious purpose of this provision was to fix the taxable situs of transactions which might have a nexus with more than one municipality." Fabick and Company v. Schaffner, 492 S.W.2d 737, 745 (Mo. banc 1973). Both of the statutes in question emphasize this purpose by additionally providing that when a retailer has more than one place of business in Missouri a sale is deemed to be consummated where the initial order is taken. No such choice is necessary here. These sales are entirely consummated in St. Louis County where, Shell, through its agents, delivers the aviation fuel, and passes title to the purchasers and ultimate users, the airlines with whom it has contracted.

Shell relies on Mobil-Teria Catering Company, Inc. v. Spradling, 576 S.W.2d 282 (Mo. banc 1978) in its argument but that case is distinguishable. In Mobil-Teria, the dispute was whether the questioned sales occurred in the context of a place of business inside or outside the limits of Kansas City, the taxing jurisdiction. Id. at 284. In that case, all indicia of the questioned sales occurred outside Kansas City. While possibly subject to taxation by other local jurisdictions, the extraterritorial sales therefore could not be subject to Kansas City's local sales taxes. Id. This conflict is not presented in the instant case since all significant aspects of the sales occur at Lambert Field which is entirely subject to the taxing jurisdiction, St. Louis County.

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