網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

O'CONNOR, J., dissenting

The link between the ASARCO investment here and the in-state business is closer than the Court suggests. It is not just that the ASARCO investment was made to benefit Bendix as a corporate entity. As the Court points out, any investment a corporation makes is intended to benefit the corporation in general. Ante, at 789. The proper question is rather: Was the income New Jersey seeks to tax intended to be used to benefit a unitary business of which Bendix's New Jersey operations were a part?

Petitioner has not carried the heavy burden of showing by clear and cogent evidence that the capital gains from ASARCO were not operationally related to its in-state business. See Container Corp., supra, at 175. Though this case comes to us on a stipulated record, there is no stipulation that the ASARCO capital gains were not intended to be used to benefit a unitary business, part of which operated in New Jersey. Instead, the record suggests that, by the time the capital gains were realized, at least some of the income was intended to be used in the attempt to acquire a corporation also engaged in the aerospace industry. App. 70–71, 81, 193. The acquisition of Martin Marietta, had it succeeded, would have been part of petitioner's unitary aerospace business, part of which operated in New Jersey. Id., at 194. As the New Jersey Supreme Court found: "[T]he purpose of acquiring Martin Marietta was to complement the aerospaceelectronics facets of Bendix business, some of which are located in New Jersey. . . . Even though the Martin Marietta takeover never came to fruition, the fact that it served as a goal for part of the capital generated by the sales of ASARCO. . . stock nurtures the premise that Bendix's ingrained policy of acquisitions and divestitures projected the existence of a unitary business." Bendix Corp. v. Director, Div. of Taxation, 125 N. J. 20, 38, 592 A. 2d 536, 545 (1991). We will, "if reasonably possible, defer to the judgment of state courts in deciding whether a particular set of activities constitutes a 'unitary business."" Container Corp., supra,

O'CONNOR, J., dissenting

at 175. Because petitioner has failed to show by clear and cogent evidence that the income derived from the ASARCO investment was not related to the operations of its unitary aerospace business, part of which was in New Jersey, New Jersey should be able to apportion and tax that income. As the Court holds that it may not, I must respectfully dissent.

REPORTER'S NOTE

The next page is purposely numbered 901. The numbers between 795 and 901 were intentionally omitted, in order to make it possible to publish the orders with permanent page numbers, thus making the official citations available upon publication of the preliminary prints of the United States Reports.

« 上一頁繼續 »