TBA Law Blog

TBA Law Blog

Court Upholds Tax Variance on Verizon Parent Company

Posted by: Amelia Ferrell Knisely on Mar 23, 2016

The Tennessee Supreme Court today upheld a decision by the Tennessee Department of Revenue to impose a tax variance on the parent company of Verizon Wireless and ruled the Commissioner of Revenue was within his authority to impose the variance. The lawsuit, filed in 2007 by Vodafone Americas Holdings Inc. and its subsidiaries, asked Tennessee to refund nearly all state franchise and excise taxes it had paid from 2002-2006. The company claimed the apportionment formula in Tennessee’s franchise and excise tax has been incorrectly applied. The Commissioner of Revenue then decided to impose on Vodafone a tax variance that required the company to pay franchise and excise taxes by a formula that varied from the standard apportionment formula in Tennessee’s tax statutes. The trial court and the Court of Appeals both upheld the Commissioner’s decision to issue the tax variance. Read the majority opinion in Vodafone Americas Holdings, Inc. v. Reagan Farr, authored by Justice Holly Kirby, and the dissent by Justice Jeffrey S. Bivins.

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