Utah Taxpayer

In recent years, states have been slowly reducing corporate income taxes. States have been doing this not by reducing corporate income tax rates but rather by increasing the sales factor weighting in corporate income tax apportionment formulas.

What is apportionment of corporate income?
Apportionment of corporate income is an important issue for multi-state companies. Many decades ago, states agreed to use an evenly weighted three-factor apportionment formula based on a corporation's sales, property, and wages. Each factor was given a 33.3% weighting. This was intended to prevent overtaxation of a corporation's profits. For example, without apportionment, a company doing business in twenty states would have to pay 100% state corporate income tax if each state imposed a 5% corporate income tax rate.

Using the evenly weighted three factor formula, the corporation's income would be apportioned to each state where it did business. The following hypothetical example illustrates how this works

Percent of sales in
Other states: 99%
In-state: 1%

Percent of wages in
Other states: 1%
In-state 99%

Percent of property in
Other states: 1%
In-state: 99%

Apportionment
Other states = (99% + 1% + 1%) / 3 = 33.7%
In-state = (1% + 99% + 99%) / 3 = 66.3%

Why increase sales factor weighting?
States have been increasing the sales factor weighting from 33.3% in order to incentivize and encourage investment by high wage, export-oriented companies that have the option of locating in any state (or country for that matter). A semiconductor manufacturer, for example, pays high wages, brings money into the state by exporting products to other states, and can locate anywhere.

By increasing the sales factor to 100%, a company that employs Utahns and invests in Utah but exports all or most of its product to other states, would pay zero or little Utah corporate income tax (assuming the throwback rule were eliminated, which will talk about at a later time). Companies that produce and employ in other states but sell their products in Utah would not benefit from this change.

Using the above hypothetical example, the Utah-based exporter's apportionment to Utah would be 1% if single sales factor were used instead of 66.3% if evenly weighted three factor were used.

Currently, Utah uses a double-weighted (50%) sales apportionment formula. Only eight states use an evenly weighted formula for all corporations. Thirteen states allow or soon will be allowing some or all corporations to use single sales factor (100% weighting). In addition, three states (Nevada, South Dakota, and Wyoming) do not impose corporate income taxes at all.

What about repealing the state corporate income tax entirely?
Complete repeal of the Utah corporate income tax presents two problems. First, the fiscal impact would be huge. In FY2006, Utah's corporate income tax generated $380 million. (The amount generated each year varies dramatically depending on the state of the economy). Increasing the sales factor weighting would impact revenues by about $30 to $50 million per year.

Second, complete repeal of the state corporate income tax would allow local governments to begin taxing intangible property such as patents, trademarks, and goodwill. The Utah state constitution prevents the taxation of intangible property as long as corporate income tax is imposed ("If any intangible property is taxed under the property tax, the income from that property may not also be taxed." -- Utah Constitution, Article XIII, section 2, part (6))

For example, let's assume a company has a market value based on its stock price of $1 billion and tangible real and personal property of $100 million. Currently, local governments can impose property taxes on $100 million. If the state corporate income tax were repealed without changing the state constitution, then local governments would impose property taxes on $1 billion.

Posted by Utah Taxpayer on Thursday, March 29, 2007 at 3:22 PM | Permalink