MeadWestvaco Corp. v. Illinois Department of Revenue

MeadWestvaco Corp. v. Illinois Dept. of Revenue

Argued January 16, 2008
Decided April 15, 2008
Full case name MeadWestvaco Corp., Successor in Interest to Mead Corp. v. Illinois Department of Revenue, et al.
Docket nos. 06-1413
Citations

553 U.S. 16 (more)

128 S.Ct. 1498, 170 L.Ed.2d 404
Prior history Certiorari to the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District
Holding
The state courts erred in considering whether Lexis served an “operational purpose” in Mead’s business after determining that Lexis and Mead were not unitary.
Court membership
Case opinions
Majority Alito, joined by unanimous court
Concurrence Thomas

MeadWestvaco Corp. v. Illinois Dept. of Revenue, 553 U.S. 16 (2008) is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the extent a state may tax companies that are not based in their state.

Mead, a corporation based out of Ohio, owned Lexis-Nexis, which was based out of Illinois. Mead sold Lexis, and Illinois maintained that Mead must pay them a proportionate capital-gains tax. Illinois asserted that Mead and Lexis were integrated to the extent required for the "unitary business rule". This rule allowed states to tax a proportionate share of the value generated by an interstate corporation.

The Supreme Court held that the two businesses were not integrated enough to be considered a "unitary business" and Illinois was not allowed to tax Mead on the Lexis sale.

External links


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, February 03, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.