WFC Holdings Corp. v. United States
| Decision Date | 30 September 2011 |
| Docket Number | Civil No. 07-3320 (JRT/FLN) |
| Parties | WFC HOLDINGS CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota |
FINDINGS OF FACT,
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW, AND
ORDER FOR JUDGMENT
Philip Karter, Jonathan Prokup, and Herbert Odell, CHAMBERLAIN, HRDLICKA, WHITE, WILLIAMS & MARTIN, 300 Conshohocken State Road, Suite 570, West Conshohocken, PA 19428; Jeffrey A. Sloan and Mark A. Hager, WELLS FARGO & COMPANY, 90 South Seventh Street, MAC N9305-164, Minneapolis, MN 55479, for plaintiff.
Thomas P. Cole, Gregory E. Van Hoey, and Jacqueline C. Brown, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, TAX DIVISION, P.O. Box 7328, Ben Franklin Station, Washington, DC 20044, for defendant.
Plaintiff WFC Holdings Corporation ("WFC" or "Wells Fargo"1) brought this action against the United States seeking a refund of federal income taxes in the amount of at least $82,313,366 for the tax year ending December 31, 1996. (Compl. ¶ 1, Docket No. 1.) According to the government, WFC's refund demand is based on capital losses accruing from a sham transaction intended to operate as a tax shelter. A trial on themerits was conducted by the Court without a jury on October 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 20, 22, 25, and November 3, 2010. The parties presented closing arguments on February 18, 2011. Having considered each party's evidence, exhibits, and arguments of counsel, the Court enters its Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order for Judgment, pursuant to Rule 52(a)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
1. All of the Findings of Fact set forth herein are undisputed or have been proven by a preponderance of the evidence.
2. To the extent that the Court's Conclusions of Law include what may be considered Findings of Fact, they are incorporated herein by reference.
3. Wells Fargo & Company, formerly known as Norwest Corporation ("Norwest"), is a diversified financial services company that, together with its subsidiaries, provides banking, insurance, investment, mortgage, and consumer finance services. (
4. WFC Holdings is the successor-in-interest to the corporation previously known as Wells Fargo & Company ("Old Wells Fargo," or simply "Wells Fargo" when the distinction is irrelevant), which was acquired by Norwest on November 2, 1998, through the merger of Old Wells Fargo into WFC Holdings. (Id. ¶ 2.)
5. Following the 1998 Norwest merger and at all times relevant to this lawsuit, WFC Holdings was the parent corporation of an affiliated group of corporations,including Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. and Wells Fargo Bank (Texas), N.A. ("the transferring banks" or, individually and/or with other Wells Fargo banking operations "the bank"). (Id. ¶¶ 2-3.)
6. Following the 1998 Norwest merger and at all times relevant to this lawsuit, Wells Fargo & Company owned and continues to own all of the outstanding stock of WFC Holdings. (Id. ¶ 8.)
7. Following the 1998 Norwest merger and at all times relevant to this lawsuit, WFC has been the common parent corporation of Charter Holdings, Inc. ("Charter"). (Id. ¶ 10.)
8. Charter was known as AMFED Financial, Inc. ("AMFED") prior to December 10, 1998. (Id. ¶ 15.)
9. At all relevant times, each of the transferring banks was and continues to be a national banking association subject to the regulatory oversight of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC") of the United States Department of the Treasury. (Id. ¶ 13.)
10. At all relevant times, Charter was and continues to be a holding company subject to the regulatory oversight of the Federal Reserve Board ("the Fed"). (Id. ¶ 16.)
11. The transferring banks, their parent corporation WFC Holdings, and Charter were at all relevant times and continue to be domestic corporations. (Id. ¶¶ 4, 9, 14.)
12. As the parent corporation of an affiliated group of corporations including WFC Holdings and Charter, WFC files consolidated income tax returns for such entities. (Id.)
13. The transaction at issue in this case - known as the "underwater lease transaction" or "lease restructuring transaction" ("LRT") - consisted of three steps, summarized briefly here and elaborated upon below.
14. First, on December 17, 1998, pursuant to an exchange agreement among the transferring banks, WFC, and Charter, the banks transferred government securities with an aggregate fair market value of $429,899,099 and a tax basis of $427,849,534, and leasehold interests in twenty-one commercial properties (comprised of twenty-two master leases, collectively "the selected leases") to Charter in exchange for 4,000 shares of Series A Preferred Stock ("Preferred Stock") in Charter and Charter's assumption of the lease obligations. By transferring the leases to Charter, the transferring banks transferred to Charter both assets (i.e. the leasehold interests) and their associated liabilities (i.e. the rent payable under such leases). (Id. ¶¶ 20, 25, 41.)
15. The accounting firm KPMG LLP ("KMPG") estimated the present value of the future cash flows associated with the transferred leases to be negative $425,899,099. (Id. ¶ 25.)
16. Second, on December 17, 1998, the transferring banks sold their 4,000 shares of Charter Preferred Stock to WFC for $4,000,000 in cash. (Id. ¶ 26.)
17. Third, on February 26, 1999, WFC sold 4,000 shares of the Preferred Stock to Lehman Brothers, Inc. ("Lehman") for $3,750,022.22. (Id. ¶ 27.)
18. WFC timely filed with the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS" or "government") a federal corporate income tax return for the tax year ending December 31, 1999 which included a deduction for a capital loss in the amount of $423,849,534 ("1999 Capital Loss"), but WFC did not utilize any portion of the 1999 Capital Loss in its 1999 tax return. (Joint Stip. ¶ 29.)
19. On March 25, 2003, WFC filed a refund claim, Form 1120X, with the IRS, claiming a refund of federal income taxes previously paid by Old Wells Fargo on the 1996 tax return. (Id. ¶ 31.)
20. In its refund claim, WFC claimed a net capital loss carryback from its 1999 tax return which was in part attributable to the 1999 Capital Loss. (Id. ¶ 32.)
21. On April 6, 2007, the IRS disallowed the refund claim with respect to the carryback at issue in this suit. (Id. ¶ 34.)
22. The LRT at issue began with WFC's acquisition of a large quantity of real estate.
23. On January 23, 1996, Old Wells Fargo reached an agreement to acquire First Interstate Bancorp ("First Interstate"), another financial services company. The acquisition was completed on April 1, 1996. (Id. 11 36-37.)
24. At the time of the First Interstate acquisition, Old Wells Fargo was a publicly traded bank holding company with business operations concentrated in California. (Id. 1 35.)
25. First Interstate was also based in the Western United States, with particular concentrations in California and Texas. (Id. 1 36.)
26. Generally, when WFC is considering acquiring another company, its Corporate Properties Group ("CPG") values the target's real estate portfolio, the value of which is integrated in WFC's offer price. (Tr. 68.)
27. From 1985 to the present, through dozens of acquisitions and mergers, Donald Dana has run CPG; he is the company's top real estate executive. (Tr. 64, 67.)
28. CPG oversees all owned and leased real property held by every entity under the Wells Fargo umbrella, with the exception of real properties acquired by foreclosure. (Tr. 66.)
29. WFC's real estate portfolio consists of over 110 million square feet of space with a present market value of approximately $10 billion. Real estate expenses account for either the second or third largest category of expenses in WFC's organization. (Tr. 65-66, 81.)
30. CPG's responsibilities include negotiating the acquisition (i.e. purchase or lease) and disposition (i.e. sale or sublease) of properties, and managing existing properties. CPG's portfolio includes retail properties such as bank branches and administrative properties such as accounting offices. (Tr. 66, 72.)
31. WFC does not always use or occupy all of the space under each master lease it holds for the entirety of the lease term. WFC mitigates the losses associated with rental payments for unused space through three methods: assignment of the lease, sublease of the space, or termination of the lease. (Tr. 68-69, 77.)
32. Because Old Wells Fargo acquired First Interstate through a hostile takeover, information regarding First Interstate's real estate portfolio was generally unavailable to CPG prior to the acquisition. CPG was therefore unable to accurately value the assets and liabilities in First Interstate's real estate portfolio prior to WFC making an offer price. (Tr. 80-81.)
33. Because the First Interstate acquisition joined two companies with significantly overlapping geographic footprints, Old Wells Fargo was left with a large quantity of excess leased space that it no longer needed for its business operations, but on which it remained obligated to pay rent. (Tr. 106-07.)
34. After the acquisition, Old Wells Fargo discovered that it had vastly underestimated the costs of integrating the companies' real estate portfolios. (Tr. 105-06.)
35. Old Wells Fargo maintained loss reserves on its books for properties it deemed "underwater," meaning Old Wells Fargo's contractual rent and related obligations exceeded the market rent that it projected it could obtain from the properties (as through a sublease) over the remainder of the leases. (Tr. 335.)
36. By March 1996, Old Wells Fargo calculated that the losses from the underwater leases acquired from First Interstate exceeded $310 million, while losses fromOld Wells Fargo branches rendered redundant by the merger were approximately $185 million. By July 1996, Old Wells Fargo calculated that the total costs associated with combining the companies' real estate...
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