Indiana Department of State Revenue v. Bethlehem Steel Corp.

DeBRULER, Justice,

dissenting.

The analysis in the majority opinion leads me along another road. As pointed out, the intent of the Indiana taxing legislation here is to tax the proceeds received from nondom-iciliaries and nonresidents from "activities or businesses or any other sources within Indiana...." Ind.Code § 62.122(@)@) (West 1989). In Gross Income Tax Division v. P.F. Goodrich Corp. (19783, 260 Ind. 41, 292 N.E.2d 247, we recognized that the proceeds received by a corporation domiciled in Indiana from a sale of a one-sixth interest in a related Illinois corporation, a transaction occurring wholly in Illinois, were subject to Indiana gross income tax. An important part of that case was its recognition that Tllinois also had a legitimate reason to impose a tax burden upon those proceeds, and that consistent with the Commerce Clause Indiana should apportion its tas. In the present case, Indiana is in the position that Illinois was in the Goodrich case, and some other state, perhaps Pennsylvania, is in the position that Indiana was in. The legislative provision that we construe today recognizes that Indiana, along with one or more other states, may impose some tax burden upon the proceeds of a single transaction. Such several burdens must each be apportioned to the real connections which each state has with the transaction. Here, major Indiana government services were marshalled to preserve the equipment that was the subject of these lease transactions. I find that Indiana intends to tax the proceeds received by a nondomiciliary corporations in such a transaction and that Indiana may do so, so long as it fairly apportions its tax. Hoosier Energy v. Dept. of State Revenue (1991), Ind., 572 N.E.2d 481.