Federal Circuit Decides Interest-Netting Dispute in Wells Fargo Case

On Wednesday, the Federal Circuit issued its decision in the Wells Fargo interest netting case, affirming in part the trial court’s decision in favor of the taxpayer but also reversing in part. We previously covered the trial court decision and the oral argument here. As our prior coverage explained, the case presented three different fact patterns (termed “situations” in the decision) in which the taxpayer’s entitlement to interest netting hinged on the extent to which corporate mergers resulted in distinct corporations becoming the “same taxpayer” under the relevant Code section governing interest netting (§ 6621(d)). And as the questioning at oral argument had indicated, the Federal Circuit’s decision did not categorically adopt either party’s position, finding for the taxpayer in one situation and for the government in another.

The Federal Circuit did not have to address all three situations because in one of them—Situation Two—the government conceded that the taxpayer was entitled to interest netting. In Situation Two, the corporation that made the overpayment had the same Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) as the corporation that had the later underpayment, even though the corporation had been through several intervening mergers between the time of the overpayment and the underpayment.

The government effectively had to make this concession—that interest netting is available when the underpaying corporation and overpaying corporation have the same TIN—in order to be consistent with its argument regarding Situation Three. In Situation Three, the corporation that had an overpayment (CoreStates) later merged into First Union, and after the merger the resulting First Union entity (which kept First Union’s TIN) had an underpayment. Relying on the decision in Magma Power (see our prior coverage of Magma Power here), the government argued that the taxpayer was not entitled to interest netting because CoreStates had a different TIN when it made its overpayment than First Union had at the time of the underpayment.

As the Federal Circuit observed, however, the only difference between Situation Two and Situation Three was “the choice of who is the named surviving corporation.” The choice of the name (and TIN) of the surviving corporation in a merger is hardly the sort of thing that ought to determine whether a taxpayer is entitled to interest netting. As the Federal Circuit astutely observed, every merger results in the surviving corporation becoming “automatically liable for the underpayments and entitled to the overpayments of its predecessors,” regardless of which TIN the surviving corporation adopts. Hewing to Congress’s intent for the statute to serve a remedial purpose, the Federal Circuit concluded that the CoreStates-First Union merger made the surviving corporation the “same taxpayer” as either of the pre-merger entities under section 6621(d).

With respect to Situation One, however, the Federal Circuit drew a limit on how broadly it was willing to interpret the “same taxpayer” requirement. In Situation One, the 2001 merger of Old Wachovia and First Union came after both Old Wachovia’s overpayment (1993) and First Union’s underpayment (1999). The Federal Circuit agreed with the government that under the decision in Energy East, the “same taxpayer” requirement is applied by asking whether “the entity that made the underpayment at the time of the underpayment is the ‘same taxpayer’ as the entity who made the overpayment at the time of the overpayment.” And since the merger postdated both the underpayment and the overpayment in Situation One, the Federal Circuit denied the taxpayer’s netting claim.

But is the Energy East test correct that entitlement to netting should be measured at the time of the underpayment or overpayment? One might reasonably argue that in applying the “same taxpayer” requirement, it makes more sense to look the period of overlap. Consider Situation One: After the 2001 merger, the surviving corporation would have been entitled to Old Wachovia’s overpayment and liable for First Union’s underpayment. And since the period of overlap extended beyond the September 2001 merger into later periods, there was good reason to conclude that the surviving corporation was entitled to interest netting from the date of the merger until the overlap periods ended. While the taxpayer did not pursue such a partial resolution on appeal, perhaps a future case will present that issue for decision.

Wells Fargo Federal Circuit Opinion