TEI Questions Constitutionality of California's Interest Offset Rule

Tax Executive, The, March, 1999

TEI has urged the California Supreme Court to review two cases involving the constitutionality of the State's so-called interest offset rule. In two cases pending before the court -- involving Hunt-Wesson, Inc. and F.W. Woolworth Co. -- the issue is whether the offset provision, which reduces a nondomiciliary company's interest expense deduction, dollar-for-dollar, for dividends received from nonunitary subsidiaries, discriminates against out-of-state companies and therefore violates both the Commerce and Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution.

On February 20, the Institute filed an amicus letter with the court, not advocating any particular view, but rather simply urging the court to take the case because of the importance of the decision and because of significant U.S. Supreme Court developments respecting facially discriminatory tax schemes. The Institute's letter is reprinted in this issue, beginning on page 179. Both Woolworth's and Hunt-Wesson's requests have been denied by the California court, and both companies are expected to ask the Supreme Court of the United States to review the decisions.