Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev. ( 2020 )

No. 15 December 16, 2020 327
IN THE OREGON TAX COURT
REGULAR DIVISION
ORACLE CORPORATION
AND SUBSIDIARIES
Plaintiff,
v.
DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE,
Defendant.
(TC 5340)
On cross-motions for partial summary judgment, Plaintiff argued that
ORS 317.267(3) impliedly includes, in Plaintiff’s Oregon sales factor, the unsub-
tracted 20 percent of dividends and Subpart F income from Plaintiff’s wholly
owned controlled foreign corporations. Defendant rejected Plaintiff’s interpre-
tation of ORS 317.267(3) and asserted that Plaintiff was required to exclude the
unsubtracted 20 percent from the sales factor under ORS 314.665(6)(a). After
examining the text, context, and legislative history of ORS 317.267(3), the court
rejected Plaintiff’s argument because the statute was not intended to address
the inclusion or exclusion of the unsubtracted 20 percent at issue. In a portion of
the decision later overturned on reconsideration, the court concluded that ORS
314.665(6)(a) does not apply to the Subpart F income because that income did not
constitute “gross receipts.” Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries v. Dept. of Rev., 24 OTR
359 (2021) (Oracle II).
Oral argument on cross-motions for partial summary
judgment was held November 25, 2019, in the courtroom of
the Oregon Tax Court, Salem.
Eric J. Kodesch, Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt PC,
Portland, filed the motion and argued the cause for Plaintiff.
Marilyn J. Harbur, Senior Assistant Attorney General,
Department of Justice, Salem, filed the cross-motion and
argued the cause for Defendant Department of Revenue.
Decision rendered December 16, 2020.
ROBERT T. MANICKE, Judge.
In this corporation excise tax appeal, Plaintiff
(collectively, taxpayer) and Defendant (the department)
cross-move for summary judgment regarding whether
taxpayer may include in its sales factor, for apportion-
ment purposes, amounts that are subtracted from federal
taxable income pursuant to ORS 317.267(2) and are not
328 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
expressly excluded from the apportionment formula by ORS
317.267(3).1
I. FACTS
The following facts are not disputed. Taxpayer’s
common parent, Oracle Corporation, is a Delaware corpo-
ration whose commercial domicile is in Redwood Shores,
California. Oracle Corporation has many domestic and for-
eign subsidiaries. On behalf of itself and certain domestic
subsidiaries, Oracle Corporation filed consolidated federal
income tax returns for the tax years ending May 31, 2010,
2011, and 2012 (the “Years at Issue”). Some or all of those
domestic subsidiaries also were included in Oregon consoli-
dated returns that Oracle Corporation filed for the Years at
Issue. The corporations joining in the Oregon consolidated
returns were engaged collectively in a single unitary busi-
ness that involves software. See ORS 317.710(5)(a).
During the Years at Issue, taxpayer conducted its
software business in foreign countries and jurisdictions
through a network of wholly owned “controlled foreign corpo-
rations” (CFCs). Some of the CFCs paid dividends to various
members of the group comprising taxpayer, and taxpayer
included those dividend amounts (the “Dividends”) in its con-
solidated federal taxable income. In addition, taxpayer also
included in its federal taxable income certain amounts that
were calculated based on various data related to taxpayer’s
CFCs, but that were not paid to taxpayer; these amounts
were required to be included pursuant to subpart F of the
Internal Revenue Code (IRC or the Code), IRC sections 951-
965.2 The court, applying the term defined in the Code, refers
to these includible amounts of taxpayer as the “Subpart F
Income.” See IRC § 952(a) (defining “Subpart F Income”).
As is common in tax literature, the parties sometimes refer
to the Subpart F Income amounts as “deemed dividends.”
See, e.g., Postlewaite, Cameron & Kittle-Kamp, Federal
Income Taxation of Intellectual Properties & Intangible
Assets ¶ 14.08[2] (Nov 2020) (“The sum of these [subpart
F] income categories is imputed to the CFC’s United States
1
Unless otherwise noted, references to the Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS)
are to the 2009 edition.
2
Unless otherwise noted, citations to the Code are to the 2012 edition.
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 329
shareholders as a deemed dividend to the extent of the CFC’s
earnings and profits. This deemed dividend is subject to tax
at ordinary income rates, even though such income has not
been received by the shareholders.”).
Taxpayer treated the Subpart F Income and the
Dividends as “dividends * * * received or deemed received”
for purposes of the subtraction allowed by ORS 317.267,
commonly referred to as Oregon’s “dividends-received deduc-
tion” statute. Applying that statute, taxpayer subtracted
80 percent of the Subpart F Income and 80 percent of the
Dividends in computing taxpayer’s Oregon taxable income.3
See ORS 317.267(2). The department does not contest that
ORS 317.267 applies to both categories of taxpayer’s income
from the CFCs and that taxpayer was entitled to subtract
80 percent of both. See former OAR 150-317.267-(B)(4)
(2012) (“Unlike the federal dividend received deduction,
the Oregon deduction is permitted on dividends received or
deemed received from foreign as well as domestic corpora-
tions. Income included in federal taxable income pursuant
to IRC [s]ection 951(a) qualifies for the [dividends-received]
deduction. Such income is a dividend ‘deemed received.’ ”).
Consistent with ORS 317.267(3), taxpayer also excluded the
80 percent amount from its sales factor when apportioning
its business income to Oregon.
II. ISSUE
At issue is the effect, if any, of the remaining
(“unsubtracted”) 20 percent of the Subpart F Income and
the unsubtracted 20 percent of the Dividends on taxpayer’s
Oregon sales factor.
III. PARTIES’ POSITIONS
Taxpayer seeks to include the unsubtracted 20 per-
cent of the Subpart F Income and the unsubtracted 20 per-
cent of the Dividends in its Oregon sales factor, contending
that these amounts are “sales” under ORS 314.665. On its
returns, taxpayer included the unsubtracted amounts only
3
Although disputed in the briefs, the parties agreed at oral argument on
these motions that, under ORS 317.267(2), the proper percentage of the Oracle
Dividends to be excluded from the apportionment factor is 80 percent for all of the
years at issue. See ORS 317.267(2)(b).
330 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
in the denominator; it did not include the unsubtracted
amounts in the numerator of its Oregon sales factor, because
it concluded that the amounts were not “in this state.”
Taxpayer argues that the provision that caused it to exclude
80 percent of the Subpart F Income and 80 percent of the
Dividends from its sales factor, ORS 317.267(3), also implies
that taxpayer must include the unsubtracted 20 percent in
its sales factor. Taxpayer seeks partial summary judgment
on that issue.
The department rejects taxpayer’s interpretation of
ORS 317.267(3). The department also argues affirmatively
in its cross-motion that a provision of the sales factor stat-
ute applicable to taxpayer, ORS 314.665(6)(a), requires tax-
payer to exclude the unsubtracted 20 percent of the Subpart
F Income and the unsubtracted 20 percent of the Dividends
from the sales factor.
IV. LEGAL BACKGROUND
This case involves the interplay among Oregon’s
consolidated return regime, Oregon’s modification of “tax-
able income” as determined under federal law, and the
Oregon sales factor for apportioning the income of a group
of corporations engaged in the same unitary business. The
court therefore starts by laying out in sequence the six main
steps to determine the Oregon taxable income of a multi-
national group of corporations, focusing on the steps at which
the “dividends-received deduction” and the apportionment
formula apply. See generally StanCorp Financial Group, Inc.
v. Dept. of Rev., 21 OTR 120 (2013); Costco Wholesale Corp.
v. Dept. of Rev., 20 OTR 537 (2012); US West / Qwest Dex
Holdings v. Dept. of Rev., 20 OTR 342 (2011).
Since 1986, the first step to determine the Oregon
taxable income of a corporation has been to determine its
“taxable income” under federal income tax law. Or Laws
1984, ch 1, § 5(10) (Spec Sess) (incorporating “taxable
income” as defined under federal law); id. § 20(1) (change
effective for tax years beginning on or after January 1,
1986). In this case, Oracle Corporation joined with affiliates
incorporated in the United States in filing a federal consoli-
dated income tax return for each of the Years at Issue, which
generally means that the corporations’ separate income and
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 331
losses were pooled, and intercompany dividends and other
transactions among members of that group were largely
eliminated. Boris I. Bittker & Lawrence Lokken, Federal
Taxation of Income, Estates & Gifts ¶ 97.2.1 (Nov 2020)
(“The basic principle of the consolidated return is that a
consolidated group is taxed on its consolidated taxable income,
representing principally the results of its dealings with the
outside world after elimination of intercompany profit and
loss.”); id. ¶ 97.4.1 (“[I]ntercompany transactions are, with
some exceptions to prevent tax avoidance, eliminated in
computing the group’s consolidated taxable income.”). Those
affiliates that were subject to Oregon tax also were required
to join in filing Oregon consolidated returns, and the Oregon
starting point became the federal “consolidated” taxable
income of the group filing federal consolidated returns. See
ORS 317.715(1). Under federal law, corporations formed under
the laws of foreign countries and other non-United States
jurisdictions generally are not subject to income tax unless
they have United States-source income or income effectively
connected with the conduct of business in the United States.
See generally Bittker & Lokken, ¶¶ 65.3.1; 65.3.2; 67.1.1. As
an extension of this principle, foreign corporations such as the
CFCs in this case are excluded from a consolidated return.
See IRC § 1504(a)(1) (defining “affiliated group” to mean
“1 or more chains of includible corporations” that meet cer-
tain criteria); id. § 1504(b)(3) (excluding foreign corporations
from the definition of “includible corporations”). This means
that the CFCs’ income and losses were not pooled with those
of the consolidated group, and dividends from the CFCs were
not eliminated but instead counted as gross income to the
consolidated group. Therefore, Oregon’s starting point (fed-
eral consolidated taxable income) did not include the CFCs’
income or losses, but it did include dividends paid to the cor-
porations that joined in the federal consolidated return.4
The second step is to determine whether the fed-
eral consolidated group consists of more than one “unitary
4
The Oregon legislature adopted the consolidated return approach as a
way to voluntarily limit the extranational reach of the state’s taxing power in
response to pressure from Congress and foreign governments, while still pooling
the income and loss of affiliated corporations in a manner similar to the prior
“combined” reporting system. See generally StanCorp, 21 OTR at 125.
332 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
group”; if so, each separate unitary group doing business
in Oregon may be required to file its own Oregon consoli-
dated return. See ORS 317.715(2) (requiring separation of
unitary groups); ORS 317.070 (imposing corporation excise
tax on a corporation “doing business within this state”). The
concept of a “unitary group” derives not from the Internal
Revenue Code but from federal constitutional regulation of
state taxation. As applied here, the term refers to a group
of corporations engaged in a common business enterprise,
operating in more than one state, that is sufficiently inte-
grated (unitary) that any state where a member is taxable
may fairly be permitted to tax a share of the value or income
of the entire business enterprise, rather than taxing only
the discrete items of value or income directly traceable to
the state. See Allied-Signal, Inc. v. Director, Div. of Taxation,
504 US 768, 778-80, 112 S Ct 2251, 119 L Ed 2d 533 (1992).
Oregon has codified a definition of “unitary business,” based
on an interpretation of constitutional case law, as a busi-
ness enterprise in which there is a “sharing or exchange of
value” as demonstrated by “centralized management or a
common executive force”; “centralized administrative ser-
vices or functions resulting in economies of scale”; or a “flow
of goods, capital resources or services demonstrating func-
tional integration.” See ORS 317.705(2), (3).
Assuming that all of the affiliates in the federal
consolidated group are engaged in the same “unitary busi-
ness” (a point not at issue in these motions), the third step
is to apply the various “additions,” “subtractions,” and other
modifications to federal consolidated taxable income that
Oregon law prescribes. See ORS 317.715(3)(a). The “dividends-
received deduction” under ORS 317.267 is the modification
that occurred in this case; taxpayer’s motion relies on that
statute. When a corporate taxpayer receives a dividend from
an affiliate outside the consolidated return group, federal law
generally allows the payee to claim a deduction for a specified
portion of that dividend. See generally IRC § 243. Subsection
(1) of ORS 317.267 generally requires the taxpayer to add that
deducted amount back to federal taxable income. With the
slate thus clean, subsection (2) allows the taxpayer to sub-
tract 80 percent of the dividend, assuming that the taxpayer
has at least a 20 percent ownership interest in the payor.
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 333
Assuming that the unitary business is taxable in
more than one state, the fourth, fifth, and sixth steps deter-
mine Oregon’s taxable share of post-modification income.
This occurs pursuant to state “allocation” and “apportion-
ment” laws and consistent with federal constitutional lim-
itations. See ORS 317.010(10)(a) - (c); see also Tektronix, Inc. v.
Dept. of Rev., 354 Or 531, 536-38, 316 P3d 276 (2013), aff’g on
other grounds, 20 OTR 468 (2012) (defining and describing
allocation and apportionment under Oregon’s version of the
Uniform Division of Income for Tax Purposes Act (UDITPA),
ORS 314.605 to 314.670). Step four is to subtract all non-
apportionable “nonbusiness” income; step five is to multiply
the remaining amount (apportionable “business” income) by
the percentage determined by the Oregon apportionment
formula; and step six is to add back any amounts of non-
business income that must be “allocated” to Oregon under
Oregon’s version of UDITPA. The result of these six steps is
Oregon “taxable income.”
At issue in this case is the apportionment formula (step
five above). For the Years at Issue, Oregon’s UDITPA pre-
scribed a standard single-factor formula based solely on the
taxpayer’s “sales” in Oregon compared to sales everywhere.
See ORS 314.650 (all business income to be apportioned to
Oregon “by multiplying the income by the sales factor”). The
term “sales” is defined as “all gross receipts of the taxpayer
not allocated” as nonbusiness income. ORS 314.610(7). The
standard UDITPA formula may be contrasted with other
formulas reserved for specific businesses, such as a “pub-
lic utility,” a “financial organization,” an “insurer,” or an
“interstate broadcaster.” See ORS 314.615 (excluding pub-
lic utility or financial organization from UDITPA); ORS
314.280 (authorizing department to adopt apportionment
formulas by rule for public utilities and financial organiza-
tions); ORS 317.660 (apportionment of insurer income); ORS
314.680 - 314.695 (interstate broadcasters). For any business
subject to the standard UDITPA formula, the department
may allow or require a tailored apportionment method (or
separate accounting) if the UDITPA formula does not “fairly
represent” the extent of the taxpayer’s business activity in
Oregon. ORS 314.670(1) (allowing alternative methods of
assigning taxable income to Oregon). In this case, taxpayer’s
334 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
returns applied UDITPA’s standard formula. That formula
is set forth in ORS 314.665(1), which states:
“[T]he sales factor is a fraction, the numerator of which is
the total sales of the taxpayer in this state during the tax
period, and the denominator of which is the total sales of
the taxpayer everywhere during the tax period.”
The remainder of ORS 314.665 contains rules to determine
whether a sale must be included in the numerator, along
with special rules such as the exclusion from the definition
of “gross receipts” under ORS 314.665(6)(a) that is the sub-
ject of the department’s motion.
V. ANALYSIS
With this background in mind, the court returns to
the parties’ arguments.
A. Taxpayer’s argument: Does ORS 317.267(3) require inclu-
sion of unsubtracted amounts?
Taxpayer relies on subsection (3) of ORS 317.267,
which states:
“There shall be excluded from the sales factor of any
apportionment formula employed to attribute income to
this state any amount subtracted from federal taxable
income under subsection (2) of this section.”
Taxpayer urges the court to determine that, because subsec-
tion (3) requires it to exclude the 80 percent of the Subpart F
Income and Dividends that taxpayer subtracted, subsection
(3) also necessarily requires taxpayer to include the unsub-
tracted 20 percent. Taxpayer describes its position as the
“clear corollary” of ORS 317.267(3) and relies on the princi-
ple of statutory interpretation known as “inclusio unius est
exclusio alterius” (the inclusion of the one is the exclusion
of the other), and on ORS 174.020(2), which states that “a
particular intent controls a general intent” when the two
are inconsistent.
Under the analytical framework that the Oregon
Supreme Court has prescribed for interpreting statutes,
the court starts not with the maxims taxpayer cites, but
with the text and context, as well as any helpful legisla-
tive history, before consulting maxims “if the legislature’s
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 335
intent remains unclear.” State v. Gaines, 346 Or 160, 171-
72, 206 P3d 1042 (2009). The text of subsection (3) does not
state that the unsubtracted portion of a dividend must be
included in an apportionment formula. The text does not
specify whether the unsubtracted portion must be included
or excluded. This silence can mean one of three things:
(a) the legislature intended to imply that the unsubtracted
portion must be included; (b) the legislature intended to imply
that the unsubtracted portion must, like the subtracted por-
tion, be excluded (a position neither party advances here);
or (c) the legislature did not intend subsection (3) to answer
the question. The court proceeds to statutory context for any
further insight.
Statutory context includes other laws in place at the
time of enactment. See Unger v. Rosenblum, 362 Or 210, 221,
407 P3d 817 (2017) (“[W]e do not consider the meaning of a
statute in a vacuum; rather, we consider all relevant stat-
utes together, so that they may be interpreted as a coher-
ent, workable whole.”) (citing Lane County v. LCDC, 325 Or
569, 578, 942 P2d 278 (1997)); Gaines, 346 Or at 177 n 16
(“Ordinarily, only statutes enacted simultaneously with or
before a statute at issue are pertinent context for interpret-
ing that statute.”). The legislature enacted subsection (3) of
ORS 317.267 in 1985, as part of a large technical correc-
tions bill making numerous changes to the 1984 corporation
excise tax overhaul act referred to above. See Or Laws 1985,
ch 802, § 33; see also Tape Recording, House Committee on
Revenue and School Finance, Subcommittee on Income Tax,
HB 2011, May 9, 1985, Tape 213, Side A (testimony of Elizabeth
Stockdale) (testifying, as attorney-in-charge for tax section
of Oregon Department of Justice, that bill was necessary to
“eliminate * * * ambiguities” because 1984 bill “was drafted in
kind of a hurry”). Then as now, the UDITPA formula in ORS
314.650 and ORS 314.665 was not the only apportionment
formula allowed or required under Oregon law.5 The depart-
ment has identified two circumstances in 1985 in which
dividends were entirely excluded from the apportionment
formula. First, the formula for airlines, under ORS 314.280
5
The court reads the reference to “any” apportionment formula in subsec-
tion (3) as a recognition that a variety of formulas exists.
336 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
and what is now OAR 150-314-0078, provided: “Passive
income items such as interest, rental income, dividends, etc.,
will not be included in the denominator * * *.” Former OAR
150-314.280-(G)(3)(b)(D) (1983). Second, for any taxpayer, a
rule under the “fairly represent” provision in ORS 314.670
provided:
“Where business income from intangible property can-
not readily be attributed to any particular income pro-
ducing activity of the taxpayer, such income cannot be
assigned to the numerator of the sales factor for any state
and shall be excluded from the denominator of the sales
factor. For example, where business income in the form of
dividends received on stock, royalties received on patents
or copyrights, or interest received on bonds, debentures or
government securities results from the mere holding of the
intangible personal property by the taxpayer, such divi-
dends and interest shall be excluded from the denominator
of the sales factor.”
Former OAR 150-314.670-(C)(3) (1983).
Taxpayer’s position, that inclusion of the unsub-
tracted portion of a dividend is the implied logical corollary
of the express exclusion of the subtracted portion, would
mean that the legislature also intended to include the
unsubtracted portion in the formula in both of these cir-
cumstances. The court finds it unlikely that the legislature
had that intention because the result would be that in both
circumstances other “passive” receipts attributable to the
“mere holding” of intangibles would remain fully excluded,
while the unsubtracted portion of dividends would have
to be included even if the airline or other taxpayer was a
merely passive holder of the stock. Taxpayer offers no rea-
son why the legislature would have wanted to single out
passive interests in stock for treatment different from pas-
sive interests in other intangibles, and the court sees no rea-
son to think that the legislature would have considered that
treatment more fair or accurate than complete exclusion of
the receipts. The court finds the department’s explanation
more logical: the legislature did not intend subsection (3)
of ORS 317.267 to address the inclusion or exclusion of the
unsubtracted portion of a dividend. Based on the statutory
context, the court tentatively concludes that subsection (3)
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 337
leaves it to the substantive law governing the particular
apportionment formula applicable to the taxpayer to deter-
mine inclusion or exclusion.
The court finds nothing in legislative history that
changes this conclusion. The department has presented an
analysis of the legislative history from both 1985 and 1984.
Unsurprisingly, given the bulk of the bill, neither party has
proffered legislative history that specifically addresses the
addition of ORS 317.267(3).
This leaves taxpayer’s arguments based on maxims
of statutory construction. The principle that “inclusio unius
est exclusio alterius” may be useful in the absence of other
evidence of legislative intent, but it cannot overcome the
strong indicators in the statutory context discussed above.
As to the principle that the more specific intent controls,
the court concludes that taxpayer erroneously assumes that
the legislature has articulated in ORS 317.267(3) a specific
intention to require inclusion of the unsubtracted dividend
in the sales factor. The legislature did not do that, however;
it was silent on that point. Taxpayer’s argument assumes
the conclusion that it seeks.
The court will deny taxpayer’s motion.
B. Department’s argument: Does ORS 314.665(6)(a) require
exclusion of unsubtracted amounts?
The court turns to the department’s argument in
its cross-motion that ORS 314.665(6)(a) requires taxpayer
to exclude the unsubtracted amounts from the sales factor.
That provision states:
“For purposes of this section, ‘sales’:
“(a) Excludes gross receipts arising from the sale,
exchange, redemption or holding of intangible assets,
including but not limited to securities, unless those receipts
are derived from the taxpayer’s primary business activity.”
ORS 314.665(6)(a). The department argues that this lan-
guage excludes the unsubtracted 20 percent of the Subpart
F Income and of the Dividends because those amounts arise
from the holding of the CFC stock. The department argues
further that the exception for receipts derived from the
338 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
taxpayer’s primary business activity does not apply because
taxpayer’s primary business activity is selling software, not
holding the CFC stock.
1. Subpart F Income
Before analyzing whether the exclusion in ORS
314.665(6)(a) applies, the court steps back to consider the
general rule in ORS 314.665(1), reprinted above. That
provision defines the sales factor as a fraction, of which
the numerator is the taxpayer’s “sales” in Oregon and the
denominator is the taxpayer’s “sales” everywhere. The term
“sales” is defined as “all gross receipts of the taxpayer not
allocated under ORS 314.615 to 314.645.” ORS 314.610(7).
The term “gross receipts” is not defined in UDITPA or else-
where in chapter 314. Although the parties seem to have
proceeded on the assumption that all amounts at issue are
“gross receipts,” and therefore “sales,” the court feels com-
pelled to test this assumption as applied to the Subpart F
Income.
Although items that constitute income typically can
be matched with the receipt of cash payments or property,
in many circumstances that match is lacking or is subject
to a significant time lag. Common examples of cash or prop-
erty receipts that are not income include certain damages
payments, insurance recoveries, condemnation proceeds if
timely reinvested in property that is “similar or related in
service or use,” distributions from a corporation that consti-
tute a return of capital rather than a dividend, or payments
constituting recovery of the taxpayer’s “basis” in property
the taxpayer sells.6 Examples of income not accompanied by
6
See Bittker & Lokken, ¶ 13.1 (discussing the exclusion of damages payments
from gross income); id. ¶ 12.1 (discussing the exclusion of life insurance, annu-
ity, and endowment contracts, and employee death benefits from gross income);
id. ¶ 44.3 (discussing nonrecognition of gain on the involuntary conversion of
property, such as by condemnation, under IRC section 1033); id. ¶ 92.1 (“To the
extent not covered by current or accumulated earnings and profits, a distribution
is treated as a return of the shareholder’s capital and applies in reduction of the
adjusted basis of the stock[.]”); id. ¶ 41.1 (“On a sale of property, gain or loss is
the difference between the amount realized and the taxpayer’s adjusted basis for
the property. This fundamental principle * * * permits the taxpayer’s investment
to be recovered tax-free before the taxpayer is charged with gain on the sale[.]”)
(internal footnote omitted).
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 339
a receipt of cash or property include certain debt forgiveness
amounts, items of income that the taxpayer accrues under
its method of accounting before actually receiving them,
income that the taxpayer has “constructively” received, and
cash that the taxpayer diverts to another under the doctrine
of “anticipatory assignment of income.”7
Subpart F income is in the latter category. Congress
enacted subpart F of the Internal Revenue Code in 1962
because the federal principle that limits the taxation of cor-
porations formed under foreign law enables a domestic par-
ent corporation to indefinitely defer tax on income earned
by foreign subsidiaries by causing the foreign subsidiaries
to not pay dividends. See id. ¶ 69.1 (quoting S Rep No 1881,
87th Cong, 2d Sess (“[N]o U.S. tax is imposed with respect
to the foreign source earnings of these corporations . . . until
dividends paid by the foreign corporations are received by
their American parent corporations or their other American
shareholders.” (Ellipsis in original.)). Subpart F income is
a collection of specific types of income of the CFC, each of
which is separately computed according to rules designed to
limit any incentive to shelter that type of income from US or
foreign tax, or (in some cases) to punish overtly illegal behav-
ior such as the payment of bribes or kickbacks. See id.; Boris
I. Bittker & James S. Eustice, Federal Income Taxation of
Corporations & Shareholders ¶ 15.62[1] (Nov 2020) (explain-
ing computation of subpart F income). The CFC shareholder
must include in federal gross income the sum of these items,
capped by the CFC’s earnings and profits for the year. See
IRC §§ 951(a)(1), 952(c)(1)(A). When a CFC pays an actual
dividend, the payment generally reduces the CFC’s earn-
ings and profits for the year; thus, to the extent the CFC
pays actual dividends, the amount that the US shareholder
must include as subpart F income is generally reduced as
well. See Bittker & Eustice, ¶ 15.61[3].
7
See Bittker & Lokken, ¶ 7.1 (discussing income from discharge of indebt-
edness); id. ¶ 5.9 (discussing the accrual method of accounting, under which the
taxpayer “takes sales and other transactions into account when they occur, even
though the taxpayer must wait for payment”; discussing constructive receipt of
income, which is income “not actually reduced to a taxpayer’s possession [but] is
constructively received by him in the taxable year during which it is credited to
his account, set apart for him, or otherwise made available so that he may draw
upon it at any time[.]”); id. ¶ 75.2 (discussing anticipatory assignments of income).
340 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
a. Was taxpayer’s Subpart F Income “gross
receipts”?
The court analyzes the term “gross receipts” to
determine whether the legislature intended the term to
include subpart F income. The court first reviews contempo-
raneous general and legal dictionaries to identify the plain
meaning and any “technical” meaning of the term when the
Oregon legislature adopted it. See Comcast Corp. v. Dept. of
Rev., 356 Or 282, 295-96 & n 7, 337 P3d 768 (2014) (stressing
the importance of consulting dictionary definitions contem-
poraneous with enactment of the statute); EAN Holdings,
LLC v. Dept. of Rev., 24 OTR 200, 203 (2020) (explaining
that the court must determine whether words have a spe-
cialized or technical meaning “that differs from the plain
meaning” and “determine whether the legislature intended
to use the term in that different, technical sense”) (citing
State v. McNally, 361 Or 314, 321-22, 392 P3d 721 (2017);
DCBS v. Muliro, 359 Or 736, 745-56, 380 P3d 270 (2016)).
The definition of “sales,” including the reference to “gross
receipts,” has not changed since the Oregon legislature
adopted UDITPA in 1965. See Or Laws 1965, ch 152, § 2.
At that time, neither Webster’s Third New International
Dictionary nor Black’s Law Dictionary included a definition
of “gross receipts.” The relevant definitions of “receipt” in
Webster’s were:
“3: the act or process of receiving <in [receipt] of a salary
which he had earned –O. S. J. Gogarty> <ports equipped
for the [receipt] of large vessels –L. D. Stamp>[;]
“4: something (as food, goods, money) that is received —
usu[ally] used in pl[ural] <ranks about tenth in the United
States in volume of fresh fruit and vegetable [receipt]s
–Calif. Agric. Bull.> <improve the harbor to accommo-
date larger raw material [receipt]s –Steel Facts> <took
the day’s [receipt]s to the bank’s night depository –J. C.
Furnas>[;]
“5: a writing acknowledging the taking or receiving of
goods or money delivered or paid <could offer only poor
paper money or [receipt]s to pay for it –F. V. W. Mason>
<paid the bill in cash and was given a [receipt]>[.]”
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 341
Webster’s Third New Int’l Dictionary 1894 (unabridged ed
1961) (emphasis omitted). The primary definition of “receive”
was “to take possession or delivery of.” Id.Similarly, Black’s Law Dictionary did not define
“gross receipts” but defined “receipt” in pertinent part as
the “[a]ct of receiving; also, the fact of receiving or being
received; that which is received; that which comes in, in dis-
tinction from what is expended, paid out, sent away, and the
like.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1433 (4th ed 1951). And the
definition of “receive” in Black’s was “[t]o take into posses-
sion and control; accept custody of.” Id.The court concludes that the plain meaning of
“receive” and its derivative “receipt” referred to the act
of taking something into possession. Those terms had an
established legal meaning that was indistinguishable
except perhaps in its emphasis on physical possession. The
court proceeds to review relevant statutory context.
The court starts with the remaining provisions of
UDITPA, because the 1965 legislature adopted UDITPA as
a complete bill, making very few changes to the uniform
language that had been the work of a national committee
for nearly a decade. See Powerex Corp. v. Dept. of Rev., 24
OTR 146, 172-76 (2020) (discussing Oregon-specific changes
upon adoption of UDITPA). Because the process of drafting
UDITPA played out in public over a number of years and
was the subject of contemporaneous commentary, the court
refers to deliberations and published reports on that pro-
cess as additional relevant “context” for the bill as presented
to the Oregon legislature for approval. Cf. Powerex Corp. v.
Dept. of Rev., 357 Or 40, 346 P3d 476 (2015) (citing UDITPA
commentary); Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. v. Dept. of
Rev., 299 Or 220, 700 P2d 1035 (1985) (same).
The text of UDITPA includes an express statement
of purpose: “to make uniform the law of those states which
enact it.” Or Laws 1965, ch 152, § 20. The court notes, how-
ever, that the object of this effort is not a uniform defini-
tion of “income,” but only a uniform method of attributing
an appropriate portion of a multistate taxpayer’s overall net
income to each state; UDITPA nowhere attempts to define
342 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
“income.”8 UDITPA also contains an implied statement of
purpose: to “fairly represent the extent of the taxpayer’s
business activity in this state[.]” Id. § 19 (allowing depart-
ment to permit or require separate accounting or alterna-
tive, “equitable,” apportionment if standard UDITPA for-
mula does not fairly represent extent of taxpayer’s business
activity in the state); see Fisher Broadcasting, Inc. v. Dept. of
Rev., 321 Or 341, 355, 898 P2d 1333 (1995) (finding UDITPA’s
apportionment method that fairly represents in-state “busi-
ness activity” “materially different” from goal of fairly and
accurately reflecting taxpayer’s in-state “net income” under
ORS 314.280). These statements of purpose suggest that the
drafters thought of income as something different from the
factors used to attribute income to a particular state.
Notwithstanding this general distinction between
income and the factors involved in apportioning it, the defi-
nition of “sales” reveals some conflation of the terms “gross
receipts” and “income”: “ ‘Sales’ means all gross receipts of
the taxpayer not allocated under ORS 314.615 to 314.645.”
ORS 314.610(7). Yet the cited provisions do not purport to
allocate “gross receipts” but rather nonbusiness “income,”
including net rents and royalties, capital gains from sales of
real property, and interest and dividends. See ORS 314.630 -
314.640. This usage, standing alone, weighs in favor of
treating subpart F income as gross receipts even though the
United States shareholder of a CFC does not take “posses-
sion” of any cash associated with the subpart F income.
8
In fact, section 4 of UDITPA recognizes that states at that time (as now)
imposed a variety of different taxes, including taxes measured by “net income”
and taxes imposed on other kinds of tax bases. Or Laws 1965, ch 152, § 4 (taxpayer
considered “taxable” in another state if the other state has “jurisdiction to subject
the taxpayer to a net income tax regardless of whether, in fact, the state does or does
not”); see also Minutes, Proceedings in Committee of the Whole Uniform Division
of Income for Tax Purposes Act at 2, July 9, 1957 (statement of George V. Powell),
available at https://www.uniformlaws.org/viewdocument/committee-archive-93?
CommunityKey=f2ef73d2-2e5b-488e-a525-51be29fbee47&tab=librarydocuments
(Act is “designed for adoption only in those states which have taxes upon net
income or which are in some fashion measured by net income. * * * It does not
amend the income tax law. All it does is apportion the tax among the states.”);
William J. Pierce, The Uniform Division of Income for State Tax Purposes, 35
Taxes—The Tax Magazine 747 (Oct 1957) (“[T]he uniform act assumes that the
existing state legislation has defined the base of the tax * * * [and] does not deal
with the problem of ascertaining the items used in computing income or the
allowable items of expense.” (Emphasis in original.)).
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 343
For further context, the court reviews the remain-
ing components of the apportionment formula as adopted
in 1965: the “property” factor and the “payroll” factor. The
1965 act assigned equal weight to each of the three factors,
and that equal weighting remained in place until 1989.9 The
property factor consisted of the average value of the taxpay-
er’s “real and tangible personal property” in Oregon divided
by the value of its real and tangible personal property every-
where, with owned property valued at its “original cost” and
property rented from others valued at eight times the net
annual rental rate. See Or Laws 1965, ch 152, §§ 11-12. The
average values were redetermined at least annually. See id.
§ 13.
The court finds two features of the property fac-
tor significant. First, only tangible personal property and
real property were included, although the UDITPA draft-
ers knew about intangible property and the Oregon legis-
lature’s experience with centrally assessed property cer-
tainly made it aware that intangible property could be a
substantial component of the value of a multistate business.
See ORS 308.510(1) (1965) (“property” used in a centrally
assessed business included “all property, real and personal,
tangible and intangible”); e.g., Knappton Towboat Co. v.
Chambers, 202 Or 618, 627, 276 P2d 425 (1954) (describing
method to determine value of the unit’s intangible assets).
For apportionment purposes, identifying a physical location
for the property was key. Second, because the value of each
item of owned property was frozen at the acquisition price,
and the total value of the taxpayer’s property was redeter-
mined periodically, the property factor essentially was an
annual snapshot of the taxpayer’s historical outlay of funds
to acquire real and personal property in the state, compared
9
In 1989, the legislature assigned additional weight to the sales factor, com-
mencing a trend that, as of the Years at Issue, has eliminated all weight for the
property and payroll factors for most taxpayers. Compare Or Laws 1965, ch 152,
§ 10 (apportioning business income “by multiplying the income by a fraction, the
numerator of which is the property factor plus the payroll factor plus the sales
factor, and the denominator of which is three”), with Or Laws 1989, ch 1088, § 1
(amending subsection (1) to state that the numerator of the sales factor “is the
property factor plus the payroll factor plus two times the sales factor, and the
denominator of which is [three] four.”) (emphasis and brackets in original to flag
added (boldface) and removed (bracketed) language) and ORS 314.650 (business
income is multiplied “by the sales factor”).
344 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
to such expenditures everywhere. Consistent with the statu-
tory focus on “the extent of the taxpayer’s business activity”
in the state, the valuation feature thus depended on the tax-
payer’s actual expenditures and ignored the possibility of
market-based appreciation or depreciation, or depreciation
due to obsolescence.10
The payroll factor consisted of the “total amount
paid in this state during the tax period for compensation”
divided by the total compensation paid everywhere. Or
Laws 1965, ch 152, § 14.11 “Compensation” was limited to
“wages” and other amounts “paid” to employees as remu-
neration. See id. § 2(3). To determine where compensation
was “paid,” the act looked first to where the employee per-
formed the services, and if the employee performed services
in more than one state, the act then looked to the location
of the base of operations or the place from which the service
was directed or controlled. Id. § 15. The payroll factor made
no attempt to determine where the benefit of the employ-
ee’s services might be received or enjoyed; wages paid to an
architectural draftsperson working in Oregon were sourced
to Oregon even if the building was in Washington. Cf. OAR
10
The 1957 minutes suggest that cost, rather than value, also was selected
because that amount was readily determinable and could be measured uni-
formly without regard to states’ varying rates of calculating depreciation for
income tax purposes. Minutes, Proceedings in Committee of the Whole Uniform
Division of Income for Tax Purposes Act at 18, July 9, 1957 (statement of George
V. Powell), available at https://www.uniformlaws.org/viewdocument/committee-
archive-93?CommunityKey=f 2ef 73d2-2e5b-488e-a525-51be29f bee47&tab=
librarydocuments; see also Charles F. Conlon, The Apportionment of Multistate
Business Income—the NCCUSL Uniform Division of Income Act, 12 Tax Executive
220 (1960).
11
The UDITPA drafters adopted the provisions for determining the sourcing
of compensation nearly verbatim from the Model Unemployment Compensation
Tax Act in order to facilitate taxpayer compliance. See Minutes, Proceedings in
Committee of the Whole Uniform Division of Income for Tax Purposes Act at
19-20, July 9, 1957 (statement of George V. Powell), available at https://www.
uniformlaws.org/viewdocument/committee-archive-93?CommunityKey=f2ef73d2-
2e5b-488e-a525-51be29fbee47&tab=librarydocuments (reading the compensa-
tion sourcing rules under UDITPA and then stating, “I would like to point out
that this is the exact language of the Model Unemployment Compensation Act
which is in force in all of the states.”); see also id. at 21 (statement of Pierce)
(“The reason we took this language verbatim is this: Every corporation will have
already computed all the figures for the payment of their unemployment tax to
the several states in which they do business, so that for computing this factor
they just take everything that they have already reported to the individual states
for paying the unemployment tax and put it here.”).
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 345
150-314-0435(4)(b)(B) (2018) (under market-based sourcing
rules, assigning receipts to location of customer or custom-
er’s property in various circumstances). In all aspects, the
payroll factor focused on the physical location of the individ-
ual worker or of the persons controlling the worker’s actions,
again reflecting physical business activity in the state.
This review of the property and payroll appor-
tionment factors weighs against treating “gross receipts”
as identical to “income.” The property and payroll factors
used concrete, readily determined metrics of cash expendi-
tures tied to physical locations, as opposed to more legally
nuanced concepts such as the fair market value of property
or the location where a customer receives the benefit of ser-
vices. This context suggests that “gross receipts” was more
likely to refer to cash or property of which the taxpayer took
possession, rather than amounts that became income solely
by imputation as a matter of law.
An Oregon Supreme Court decision, and subsequent
Oregon legislation, supply important context to understand
how the 1965 legislature would have viewed the relationship
between “gross receipts” and “income.” In Corbett Inves’t Co.
v. State Tax Com. The taxpayer was an investment company
that derived income from rental properties but, in the year
at issue (1944), sold some property at a loss of $115,718.14.
181 Or 244, 245, 181 P2d 130 (1947). The taxpayer sought
exemption from the corporation excise tax based on a provi-
sion that exempted “[e]very corporation whose gross receipts
to the extent of at least ninety-five (95) percent thereof
is derived from rentals of real property owned by it * * *.”
Id. at 245-46 (quoting OCLA § 110-1511(k)) (emphasis added;
ellipsis in original). Although the taxpayer incurred a loss
on the sale, the cash it received from the sale apparently
caused its receipts from rent to drop below 95 percent of its
overall receipts for the year, a fact that prompted the attor-
ney for the State Tax Commission to acknowledge that the
taxpayer’s claim for exemption had “an appealing equity.”
Id. at 245, 250. Nevertheless, the commission argued that
“gross receipts” had a broad meaning that included the sale
proceeds, ignored the loss, and rendered the taxpayer ineli-
gible for the exemption. Id. at 247.
346 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
Seeking an established definition of “gross receipts,”
the court considered a wide range of terms occurring in case
law and treatises, including “gross income,” “gross proceeds,”
and “gross earnings.” Id. at 249. The court found conflicting
views as to whether or how to distinguish the terms, ulti-
mately concluding that “[g]ross income or gross receipts are
terms whose meaning depends largely upon the context and
subject matter of the act in which they are used.” Id. at 248-
49 (citing First Trust Co. of St. Paul v. Commonwealth Co.,
98 F2d 27 (8th Cir 1938)).
Upon reviewing the statutory history of the Oregon
real estate rental company exemption, the court found that,
as originally enacted as part of the corporation excise tax
act in 1929, the exemption provision contained the identi-
cal language, except that it used the term “gross income.”
Or Laws 1929, ch 427, § 11(j). The 1929 act defined “gross
income” to include “gains, profits or income from dealings
in real or personal property.” Or Laws 1929, ch 427, § 2(g).
The court concluded that under the original 1929 text the
exemption would have applied to the taxpayer because the
taxpayer incurred no “gain” or “profit” from the sale, only a
loss. See Corbett, 181 Or at 247 (“Prior to this amendment, it
is clear that * * * the plaintiff * * * would have been entitled
to exemption, because a loss could in no sense be considered
as a part of income.”); id. at 249 (“ ‘income’ implies a gain or
profit”). The court also stated: “The United States Supreme
Court has definitely rejected the broad contention that all
receipts—‘everything that comes in’—are income within the
meaning of ‘gross income’ as used in tax legislation.” Id. at
248 (citing Southern Pacific Co. v. Lowe, 247 US 330, 38 S Ct
540, 62 L Ed 1142 (1918)).12
12
In Southern Pacific, the Court eliminated earnings and profits accumu-
lated before the effective date of the Federal Income Tax Act of 1913 and the
adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
as the measure of taxable dividends paid after the effective date of the act. 247
US at 335-37. The court held that “the accumulations that accrued to a corpo-
ration prior to January 1, 1913, [were] capital, not income, for purposes of the
act.” Id. at 335. The Court also found it important that the dividend-payor was
the wholly owned subsidiary of the taxpayer and therefore the two entities “were
in substance identical because of the complete ownership and control which
the latter possessed over the former, as stockholder and in other capacities.”
Id. at 337.
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 347
The court explained that the legislature in 1933
amended the exemption statute to replace “gross income”
with “gross receipts.” Corbett, 181 Or at 247; see Or Laws
1933, ch 33, § 4 (Spec Sess). However, the court stated
that the intent of the original 1929 act was “to relieve the
heavy burden of taxes imposed upon real property. It was
provided therein that corporations whose income consisted
principally of rentals of real property should be exempted
in order to avoid double taxation.” Corbett, 181 Or at 246.
The court considered what intention the 1933 legislature
might have had in substituting the term “gross receipts” for
“gross income,” but the court concluded that assigning the
broadest meaning to the term “gross receipts” would yield
an “absurd, unreasonable and unjust result * * *.” Id. at
248. The court hypothesized that the legislature could not
have intended, for example, to disqualify from the exemp-
tion a corporation that happened to receive proceeds from
the involuntary conversion of property as a result of emi-
nent domain proceedings, or proceeds from insurance after
property was destroyed by fire. Id. Accordingly, the court
declined to give a “strict or literal construction” to the term
“gross receipts” and held that, “consonant with the purpose
and spirit of the excise tax law,” the term “gross receipts”
includes only “receipts within the classification of ‘income.’ ”
Id. at 249-50.
Six years after Corbett, in 1953, the legislature
inserted a special definition of “gross receipts” into the real
estate rental company exemption statute. As amended,
the definition conformed to, and tightly circumscribed, the
court’s opinion in Corbett:
“For the purposes of this subsection, ‘gross receipts’
shall mean the gross amount of all receipts, any part of
which is included within the term ‘gross income’ as defined
in section 110-1506, subsection (3), O.C.L.A., undiminished
by any deductions, exemptions or exclusions whatsoever;
but, in the case of a sale, exchange or involuntary conver-
sion of property not held for sale in the ordinary course of
the trade or business, only the amount of gain, computed in
accordance with section 110-1512, O.C.L.A., as amended,
and recognized under the provisions of section 110-1513,
O.C.L.A., as amended, shall constitute gross receipts.”
348 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
Or Laws 1953, ch 653, § 1, amending OCLA § 110-1511,
as amended by Or Laws 1949, ch 406, § 1. The legislature
eliminated the exemption altogether in 1955. Or Laws 1955,
ch 592, § 5.
Based on Corbett, the legislature in 1965 would have
understood that the “literal” meaning of “gross receipts”
encompassed cash proceeds as distinct from “income,” even
though the court found an overriding legislative intention to
equate the two terms for purposes of the exemption at issue
in that case. The legislature in 1965 also would have been
aware of its own action in 1953 to create a specific defini-
tion of “gross receipts”—solely for the purpose of applying
the real estate rental company exemption—that deviated
from the general definition and conformed to the exception
created in Corbett. The court finds that this context weighs
heavily in favor of interpreting “gross receipts,” as used in
the definition of “sales” for apportionment purposes, as a con-
cept different from “income.” Whereas “income” bore legal
interpretations that substituted gain for the total amount
received from a sale, and ignored altogether any amount
received as eminent domain compensation or an insurance
recovery, the 1965 legislature would have understood “gross
receipts” to mean “everything that comes in.” The court
finds this meaning of “gross receipts” also consistent with
the focus on “taking possession” in the dictionary definitions
and the focus on actual cash expenditures in the property
and payroll factors.
The court has found nothing relevant to this issue
in the written materials comprising the legislative history
of Oregon’s adoption of UDITPA, nor in the available record-
ings of oral proceedings.
b. Conclusion: ORS 314.665(6)(a) does not apply to
taxpayer’s Subpart F Income
Based on the text, context, and legislative history,
the court concludes that “gross receipts,” and therefore
“sales” for purposes of Oregon’s sales factor under UDITPA,
does not encompass subpart F income. This means that
it misses the mark to focus on whether the 1995 legisla-
ture intended the exclusion in ORS 314.665(6)(a) for “gross
receipts arising from the sale, exchange, redemption or
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 349
holding of intangible assets” to apply to taxpayer’s Subpart
F Income. ORS 314.665(6)(a) cannot apply because taxpay-
er’s Subpart F Income was never gross receipts in the first
place. Rather, the Subpart F Income is simply additional
income; the record to date does not indicate that taxpayer’s
Subpart F Income was matched to any item of actual gross
receipts that were accounted for in the apportionment fac-
tor. The department’s motion poses only the narrow ques-
tion whether ORS 314.665(6)(a) requires the unsubtracted
portion of taxpayer’s Subpart F Income and Dividends to
be excluded from the apportionment factor, assuming it is
apportionable business income. Having concluded that the
answer is “no,” the court will deny the department’s motion
as to taxpayer’s Subpart F Income.13
2. Dividends
The court now turns to the Dividends. Here, there is
no lack of a match; the Dividends were actual distributions
of gross receipts that also constituted income to taxpayer.14
The question is whether the Dividends “ar[ose] from the sale,
exchange, redemption or holding of intangible assets,” and if
so, whether the Dividends were “derived from the taxpayer’s
primary business activity.” See ORS 314.665(6)(a). The court
13
The court notes that it finds nothing inconsistent in treating the Subpart
F Income as not “gross receipts” for apportionment purposes while treating it as
“deemed” dividends for purposes of the subtraction under ORS 317.267, as both
parties have done in this case. Federal income tax commentators regularly refer
to subpart F income as “deemed” dividends, and the Oregon legislature included
the reference to “dividends * * * received or deemed received” in ORS 317.267(2)
in 1984, some 20 years after Congress had adopted subpart F of the Code. See
Or Laws 1984, ch 1, § 9(2) (Spec Sess); Revenue Act of 1962, Pub L No 87-834, 76
Stat 1006 (codified as amended at 26 USC §§ 901 et seq.); Postlewaite, Cameron
& Kittle-Kamp, ¶ 14.08[2] (“The sum of these [subpart F] income categories is
imputed to the CFC’s United States shareholders as a deemed dividend to the
extent of the CFC’s earnings and profits. This deemed dividend is subject to tax
at ordinary income rates, even though such income has not been received by the
shareholders.”).
14
As the department points out in arguing against taxpayer’s position on
the meaning of ORS 317.267(3), the express exclusion from the apportionment
formula of the subtracted portion of an actual dividend helps to preserve the
integrity of this match: the taxpayer gets the benefit of the subtraction from
income, but an out-of-state taxpayer may not “double dip” by still counting the
subtracted portion as gross receipts in the sales factor denominator, thereby
diluting its Oregon sales factor. Likewise, an in-state taxpayer that benefits from
the subtraction is not “punished” by having to count the subtracted portion in the
numerator (as well as the denominator) of its sales factor.
350 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
again applies the State v. Gaines framework. The court sees
no issue regarding the “sale,” “exchange,” or “redemption”
of assets; if the statute applies, it is because the Dividends
“ar[ose] from” taxpayer’s “holding” of the intangible assets
in question, namely, the shares of stock in the CFCs that
paid the Dividends.15
a. Did the Dividends arise from taxpayer’s “hold-
ing” of the CFC stock?
The court now examines whether the Dividends
arose from taxpayer’s “holding” of the intangible shares
of CFC stock.16 In Webster’s, the first listed definition of
the verb “hold” was synonymous with “possess”: “to retain
in one’s keeping : maintain possession of : not give up or
relinquish.” Webster’s at 1078 (unabridged ed 1993). The
many additional listed meanings generally referred to var-
ious kinds of control or power over an object, for example,
“to impose restraint upon or limit in motion or action,” “to
have or keep in the grasp,” and “to receive and retain.” Id.Similarly, the first definition in Black’s was “[t]o possess
in virtue of a lawful title; as in the expression, common in
grants, ‘to have and to hold,’ or in that applied to notes, ‘the
owner and holder.’ ” Black’s at 730 (6th ed 1990). From these
definitions, the court concludes that the plain and technical
legal meaning of “arising from” the “holding” of intangible
assets was that the gross receipts at issue must originate
from the possession or legal ownership of the shares.17
15
Taxpayer argues that the legislature’s reference to “securities” indicates
an intention to limit the object of the exclusion to only those intangible assets
that fit within the definition of a security. See ORS 314.665(6)(a) (excluding gross
receipts arising from sale, exchange, redemption, or holding of intangible assets,
“including but not limited to securities” unless receipts are derived from taxpay-
er’s primary business activity). Consistent with Tektronix, the court rejects this
argument. Tektronix, 354 Or at 544 (“The additional phrase that follows the term
‘intangible assets’—’including but not limited to securities’—does not limit the
meaning of the term.”).
16
As of 1995, the plain meaning of “arise” was “to originate from a specified
source,” to “come into being,” to “come about,” or to “become apparent in such a
way as to demand attention.” Webster’s at 117 (unabridged ed 1993). The term
also had an established legal meaning, but that meaning was indistinguishable:
“To spring up, originate, to come into being or notice * * *.” Black’s at 108 (6th ed
1990). The court sees no need to discuss this term further.
17
The court also checked for a tax-law specific definition of “hold” or “hold-
ing,” but the only definition found was not relevant for this discussion. See West’s
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 351
The court turns to statutory context. Because ORS
314.665(6)(a) is part of Oregon’s statutory mechanism to
determine Oregon’s taxable share of the income of a multi-
state enterprise, the court considers how that mechanism
addressed dividends as of 1995. Under the constitutional
principles to which Oregon’s statutes sought to conform, it
was clear at that time that dividends might be either non-
apportionable nonbusiness income, or apportionable busi-
ness income. The United States Supreme Court had deter-
mined that dividends were apportionable in either of two
circumstances: (1) where the payor subsidiary was in the
same unitary business as the payee, as described in Mobil
Oil Corp. v. Commissioner, 445 US 425, 439-43, 100 S Ct
1223, 63 L Ed 2d 510 (1980); or (2) where the payor and payee
were not in the same unitary business, but the payee used
the payor’s stock in an “operational function” in the payee’s
business, as opposed to holding the stock for an “investment
function,”18 as described in Allied-Signal, 504 US at 787-88.
One well-recognized example of an “operational function”
was the generation of income that formed “part of the work-
ing capital of the [payee] corporation’s unitary business[.]”
Id. at 787 (interest earned on short-term deposits in a bank
is apportionable if the account is part of the company’s work-
ing capital).
In this case, taxpayer’s Oregon returns reported
the Dividends as apportionable business income.19 The
department agrees that the Dividends are apportionable
business income, but argues that the gross receipts consti-
tuting the Dividends are excluded from the apportionment
factor under ORS 314.665(6)(a). Evidence in the record to
date suggests that taxpayer as payee may be engaged in the
Tax Law Dictionary 412 (1995) (defining “holding” as the “conclusion of law
reached by a court as to the legal effect of a case.”).
18
If the payor and the payee were not engaged in the same unitary busi-
ness, and the stock served only an “investment function,” the dividends were not
apportionable at all, but were required to be allocated to a specific state. See ORS
314.625 and ORS 314.640 (dividends constituting nonapportionable, nonbusiness
income must be allocated to state of payee’s commercial domicile).
19
In this appeal, taxpayer asserts an alternative claim that the Subpart F
Income and the Dividends were nonbusiness income allocable to taxpayer’s com-
mercial domicile. That alternative claim is not at issue in these cross-motions,
and the court expresses no view on that issue.
352 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
same unitary business as the CFC payors (circumstance (1)
above).20 If that proves accurate, then at least for due pro-
cess purposes the form of the income as dividends becomes
largely irrelevant: “So long as dividends from subsidiaries
and affiliates reflect profits derived from a functionally inte-
grated enterprise, those dividends are income to the parent
earned in a unitary business.” Mobil Oil, 445 US at 440;
see also Jerome R. Hellerstein & Walter Hellerstein, State
Taxation ¶ 9.15[2] (Sept 2019) (“The rationale for holding
intangible income apportionable when the payor and payee
are engaged in a unitary business is that such income is, in
substance, the operating income of the unitary enterprise
even though it takes the form of intangible income paid by
the subsidiary to its parent.” (Internal footnote omitted.)).
Against this constitutional backdrop distinguish-
ing among dividends from a unitary payee, dividends from
stock serving an operational function such as cash manage-
ment, and dividends serving an investment function, the
20
Although taxpayer submitted scant evidence or argument addressing
the CFCs’ integration, or not, with taxpayer’s unitary business, the department
submitted as evidence taxpayer’s Form 10K for the fiscal year ended May 31,
2012 (the “2012 10K”). The 2012 10K purports to describe the activities of the
entire group of corporations consolidated under Generally Accepted Accounting
Principles (GAAP). GAAP at that time—unlike the federal consolidated income
tax rules—appears to have generally required controlled foreign corporations to
be included in consolidated financial reports. See Paul E. Holt, A case against the
consolidation of foreign subsidiaries’ and a United States parent’s financial state-
ments, Accounting Forum (Oct 20, 2003), available at https://www.tandfonline.
com/doi/full/10.1016/j.accfor.2003.10.001 (“[A]ccording to generally accepted
accounting principles (GAAP) in the United States, [multinational corporations]
which own more than 50% of the voting stock of foreign corporations are required
to prepare consolidated financial statements” unless “control is temporary” or
“control does not exist.”); see also Steven M. Bragg, GAAP 2012 Interpretation and
Application of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles 589-94 (2011) (stating
that business entities that possess a controlling financial interest in one or more
subsidiaries must, under GAAP, file consolidated financial statements that show
“all of its subsidiaries presented as a single economic entity,” and not discussing
any general exceptions that allow parent entities to exclude foreign subsidiaries
from consolidated financial returns on the basis that the subsidiary is a foreign
entity (emphasis added)). Most of the narrative of the 2012 10K is phrased in the
first-person plural (“we,” “our”), and it generally does not distinguish between
activities of domestic US or foreign affiliates. However, the few descriptions that
do so tend to confirm that the activities of foreign subsidiaries are included.
The department also submitted an April 2000 offering memorandum by Oracle
Corporation Japan describing that company’s “business, results of operation and
financial position” as “dependent on the policies, business, results of operation
and financial position of Oracle and on the performance, acceptance and compet-
itiveness of Oracle products in the United States and internationally.”
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 353
legislature enacted ORS 314.665(6)(a) in 1995 as a stand-
alone bill. See Or Laws 1995, ch 176, § 1. There is no other
text within the same bill to shed light on the meaning of
the terms at issue here. The court has found no references
within the income tax chapters of the ORS at the time that
deviate from the plain and technical meaning of “holding”
intangible assets as having to do with their possession.21
The court proceeds to the legislative history of the
1995 law, which the Oregon Supreme Court reviewed in
Tektronix. 354 Or at 544-45. In that case, the taxpayer had
sold all the assets of its printer division, including intangi-
bles that it referred to as goodwill, and the taxpayer sought
to exclude from the sales factor the gross receipts attribut-
able to the goodwill. Id. at 533-34. This court concluded that
the legislative history indicated an intent to limit the term
“intangible assets” as used in ORS 314.665(6)(a) solely to
“liquid assets” that taxpayers bought, held for short periods,
and sold as a way to manage cash flow, creating a high vol-
ume of gross receipts that tended to skew the apportionment
of income to the headquarters state. 20 OTR at 494-501.
Accordingly, this court held that ORS 314.665(6)(a) provided
no basis to exclude the taxpayer’s obviously illiquid good-
will from the sales factor. Id. at 495. Although the Supreme
Court agreed that the legislative history indicated an intent
to address the so-called “treasury function” problem, the
plain meaning of “intangible assets” encompassed a much
broader class of assets. 354 Or at 545. Nothing in the leg-
islative history showed any intent to limit the plain mean-
ing of “intangible assets.” Id. Therefore, the Supreme Court
rejected this court’s conclusion and held that the taxpayer’s
21
See, e.g., ORS 314.260 (1995) (income of a real estate mortgage investment
conduit or REMIC taxable “to the holders of the interests in the REMIC”); ORS
314.421 (1995) (income tax lien not valid as against any purchaser or “holder” of
a security interest, etc., until warrant recorded); ORS 314.718(3) (1995) (partner-
ship’s holding period of property contributed by a partner includes period during
which the property was “held” by that partner); ORS 316.683(4) (disallowing cer-
tain losses on sale or exchange of share “held by the taxpayer” for six months or
less). One use of the term “holding” suggests that the legislature distinguished
between possession of property and the other activities of managing, buying
or selling the property. ORS 316.871(3)(d) (for purposes of deferral program for
reinvestment of gain on sale of “small business corporation” securities, defining
“small business corporation” as, among other things, “not engaged primarily in
the business of managing, holding, buying or selling real property”).
354 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
goodwill was an “intangible asset” that was required to be
excluded from the sales factor.
In this case, there is no dispute that the CFC stock
constitutes “intangible assets” under ORS 314.665(6)(a).
The focus here is on taxpayer’s activity with respect to those
assets, specifically what the legislature meant by the “hold-
ing” of intangible assets.22 In his overview introducing the
bill to members of the House Revenue Committee, Steve
Bender of the Legislative Fiscal Office described the provi-
sion that became ORS 314.665(6)(a) as follows:
“What that means is if a business, for example, has a cash
account and they * * * maintain securities that earn inter-
est and they sell those and buy new ones in an investment
process, where that really isn’t their business, the ques-
tion is, well, every time they sell those securities is that
included in the sales factor or not. This would exclude those
types of sales.”
Tape recording, House Committee on State and School
Finance, HB 2203, Apr 25, 1995, Tape 86 Sides A & B at
03:17 (testimony of Steve Bender). Jim Manary, a represen-
tative for the department, testified:
“[I]f you have a manufacturing business that then has some
other assets—has an investment pool—where they turn
over stocks and other intangibles and earn money on it,
* * * that technically is a sale, a sale of stocks, you want to
count that kind of sale in with manufacturing sales, ’cause
the sale will be attributed to wherever that investment is.
It could be in New York that they’re doing the investment.
“* * * * *
“None of the states currently will include all that kind
of a turnover of intangibles in the sales factor because it
distorts where the regular business’s income is, and the
states are split. * * * Part of them do not include it, as you
can see from this, 17 of the states include the gain from
that. So, if you are turning over intangible stock and you
have gain from that, they will include that as a sale.”
Id. at 7:00 (testimony of Jim Manary).
22
In Tektronix the nature of the taxpayer’s activity under ORS 314.665
(6)(a) was clear: The gross receipts arose from the “sale” of intangible assets. The
taxpayer sold its printer division, including the goodwill, to another corporation
(Xerox Corporation). See 20 OTR at 470.
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 355
Before the Senate Revenue Committee, Steve Bender
testified:
“What this is dealing with is, is a situation where you don’t
have a financial company, * * * and they may hold a set of
financial assets. And they might sell these assets to pur-
chase new ones, and they may be short-term investments
or what have you. And they’re churning these assets and
selling them and buying new ones, and just using that as a
cash management mechanism. The question is, well, when
they sell these assets, should that be included in the appor-
tionment formula or not. This bill would exclude those.”
Tape recording, Senate Committee on Government Finance
and Tax Policy, HB 2203, May 5, 1995, Tape 113 Sides A & B
at 0:50 (testimony of Steve Bender). Jim Manary then testified:
“If in fact you do have a manufacturing operation, and
you’re trying to apportion the income among the states, do
you want to now also include investment income as a way of
doing that. We’ve had—there are some large corporations
that might, on their primary business have $10 billion in
sales a year, and they’ve got $100 billion in turnover in
their investment portfolio. So you can distort, and that’s—I
didn’t use the right numbers but that is an actual example
to give you an idea—because they will go into the securities
market each day and they might * * * buy $10 or $20 mil-
lion of stock and sell it that night. So they can turn over a
lot, and the problem is distorting where that income really
ought to be apportioned.”
Id. at 07:05 (testimony of Jim Manary).
From this legislative history, especially the refer-
ences to “turnover” and “churning,” the court concludes that
the legislature was focused on a passive “holding” of intan-
gibles as “investments” for short periods (often less than
a day) in anticipation of appreciation in value, or for the
generation of interest or dividends, and then for sale. The
examples discussed before the revenue committees involved
securities the taxpayer held as part of an investment “pool”
or “portfolio,” further implying that the taxpayer did not
control the issuers or manage the issuers’ business.
Given the constitutional context and this legislative
history, the court is concerned that describing taxpayer’s div-
idends from the CFCs as arising from the “holding” of the
356 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
CFC stock may be a seriously misleading understatement. To
be sure, the immediate origin of the dividends in taxpayer’s
hands was taxpayer’s ownership and possession of the shares
when the CFCs paid dividends, but taxpayer’s relationship
with the CFCs went far beyond that of passively “holding”
shares pooled in an investment portfolio with the securities
of other issuers, and cashing periodic interest and dividend
checks before selling off the shares. The record as developed
to date indicates that taxpayer owned 100 percent of the
stock of most of the CFCs and, as described above, may have
been engaged in the same unitary business with some or all
of them. If the facts do show that the CFCs are engaged with
taxpayer in a single, unitary business, then by definition
this would mean that taxpayer’s operations were thoroughly
integrated with those of the CFCs, based on some combina-
tion of centralized management, centralized administrative
services, and a flow of goods, capital resources, or services.
See Allied-Signal, 504 US at 781-82; see also ORS 317.705(3)
(defining “unitary business”). Taxpayer, as sole shareholder
and perhaps also as a principal supplier or customer, may
have been in a position to determine whether and when a
CFC should pay it a dividend. There is strong evidence that
taxpayer formed at least one of the CFCs (Oracle Japan), and
as sole or majority shareholder, taxpayer may well have been
empowered under local law to merge a CFC out of existence
or dissolve it. In contrast to Tektronix, where the action gener-
ating the receipts was no more and no less than the “sale” of
the intangible assets to a third party (Xerox) at arm’s length,
in this case the court declines to decide on summary judg-
ment that the Dividends arose from taxpayer’s “holding” of
the CFC shares, where uncontroverted evidence indicates
that taxpayer may have influenced or controlled the CFCs’
business, including their formation and continued existence.
The court will deny the department’s cross-motion
as to whether the Dividends arose from the “holding” of the
CFC stock.
b. Were the Dividends derived from taxpayer’s pri-
mary business activity?
Even if the Dividends can fairly be said to have
arisen from taxpayer’s holding of the CFC shares, the
Cite as 24 OTR 327 (2020) 357
Dividends still could not be excluded from the apportion-
ment factor under ORS 314.665(6)(a) if the Dividends were
“derived from the taxpayer’s primary business activity.” ORS
314.665(6)(a).23 Taxpayer’s primary business activity was
developing and selling software and computer hardware,
and as discussed above there is evidence in this case that
the CFCs were part of that very business. By definition, the
Dividends were paid out of the CFCs’ “earnings and profits”
from their business; therefore, the evidence in the record to
date suggests that the requirements of the exception may
be satisfied. To be sure, the examples in the legislative his-
tory indicate that the legislature intended this exception
to prevent the exclusion of receipts where the taxpayer was
in the primary business of selling short-term securities or
passively holding intangibles that produce interest or div-
idends. However, the logic of Tektronix requires the court
to inquire whether the exception is limited to that circum-
stance. By its plain terms, it is not.
The department argues that to consider the primary
business activity of the CFCs for purposes of the exclusion
under ORS 314.665(6)(a) would necessarily require the court
to disregard the form of taxpayer’s business structure as a
group of separate, although wholly owned, corporations. The
court disagrees. Moline Properties and related cases require
the separate existence of a corporation to be respected if a
two-part test is satisfied: first, the corporation must have
been created for business purposes; second, the corporation
must actually conduct business activity in corporate form.24
Moline Properties, Inc. v. Comm’r, 319 US 436, 438-39, 63 S
Ct 1132, 87 L Ed 1499 (1943) (“Whether the purpose be to
gain an advantage under the law of the state of incorpora-
tion or to avoid or to comply with the demands of creditors or
to serve the creator’s personal or undisclosed convenience,
so long as that purpose is the equivalent of business activity
23
At the time ORS 314.665(6)(a) was enacted, the plain and technical defi-
nitions of “derived” were “formed or developed out of something else : derivative
: reflected or secondary in character : not original or primary,” Webster’s at 608
(unabridged ed 1993), and “received from a specified source,” Black’s at 444 (6th
ed 1990). As with the meaning of “arising from,” discussed above, the court sees
no need to discuss this term further.
24
The court does not address whether the two-part test is disjunctive or
conjunctive.
358 Oracle Corp. and Subsidiaries I v. Dept. of Rev.
or is followed by the carrying on of business by the corpo-
ration, the corporation remains a separate taxable entity.”
(Internal footnotes and citations omitted.)). The court sees
no reason why a corporation could not maintain its sepa-
rate existence under Moline Properties while complying with
the demands of a sole or controlling shareholder to pay div-
idends and to run its operations efficiently as part of a uni-
tary group. The question, in any event, is one of fact to be
determined, if raised, at trial.
The court will deny the department’s cross-motion
as to whether the Dividends were derived from taxpayer’s
primary business activity.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
For the foregoing reasons, the court concludes that
(1) ORS 317.267(3) does not require the unsubtracted amounts
of either taxpayer’s Subpart F Income or the Dividends to
be included in the apportionment formula; (2) ORS 314.665
(6)(a) does not apply to the unsubtracted portion of taxpayer’s
Subpart F Income because there are no “gross receipts” that
constitute or match to taxpayer’s Subpart F Income; and
(3) a genuine issue of material fact exists regarding whether
the Dividends arose from taxpayer’s “holding” of the CFC
stock and if so, whether under ORS 314.665(6)(a) the
Dividends were derived from taxpayer’s primary business
activity. Now, therefore,
IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion for Partial
Summary Judgment is denied; and
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendant’s
Cross-Motion for Partial Summary Judgment is denied.