| Appellant Alcoa World Alumina, LLC, appeals from an order entered by the Pulaski County Circuit Court on April 3, 2009, denying Appellant’s request for a refund of use taxes it paid for purchases of natural gas. The appellee is Richard A. Weiss, in his official capаcity as the Director of the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration (DFA). Appellant maintains that the natural gas it purchased from sellers outside Arkansas is not subject to taxation since it did not “finally come to rest” before consumption in Appеllant’s manufacturing facility, pursuant to Ark.Code Ann. § 26-53-106(b) and our holding in Mississippi River Transmission Corp. v. Weiss,
| ^Appellant purсhased natural gas from sellers outside of Arkansas between October 1, 2000, and February 28, 2004, for use at Appellant’s plant in Bauxite, Arkansas. The gas was bought pursuant to Transportation Service Agreements, and traveled through interstate pipelines directly to thе internal gas lines of Appellant’s plant, and from there to various sites and equipment, located within Appellant’s plant, for consumption. The gas was consumed almost immediately upon receipt; Appellant never stored the gas. Movement оf the gas was caused by its pressurization in compression stations along the interstate pipeline. The gas was metered as it left the interstate pipeline and entered Appellant’s gas lines, at which point the Agreements deemed the gas deliverеd to Appellant.
The DFA imposed a use tax on this natural gas pursuant to Ark.Code. Ann. § 26-53-106 (Repl.1997). Section 26-53-106 states in relevant part:
(a) There is levied and there shall be collected from every person in this state a tax or excise for the privilege of storing, using, distributing, or consuming within this state any article of tangible personal property purchased for storage, use, distribution, or consumption in this state at the rate of three percent (3%) of the sales price of the property.
(b) This tax will not apply with respеct to the storage, use, distribution, or consumption of any article of tangible personal property purchased, produced, or manufactured outside this state until the transportation of the article has finally come to rest within this state or until the аrticle of tangible personal property has become commingled with the general mass of property of this state.1
|sThe question we are presented with in this case is whether the natural gas came to rest in this state within the context of Ark.Code. Ann. § 26-53-106(b), or whеther it was still within the stream of interstate commerce when it was taxed. As such, this case presents an issue of
14 Appellant argues that its circumstances do not satisfy the “finally come to rest” requirement of Ark.Code. Ann. § 26-53-106 because the natural gas taxed was in continuous motion up until it was combusted in Appellant’s facility. Appellant bases this argument on our reasoning in Mississippi River Transmission Corp. v. Weiss,
While our language in Mississippi River seemingly provides an answer to the issue presented to us in this case, an examination of other cases that have addressed the “come to rest” test is appropriate. The “come to rest” test has its roots in the United States Supreme Court case Helson v. Kentucky,
The “come to rеst” test was adopted by the Arkansas legislature in 1949 with the passage of the Arkansas Compensation Tax Act, now codified as Ark.Code Ann. § 26 — 53-tL06(b),R requiring that any tangible piece of personal property not subject to sales tax be subject to a use tax, as long as the property had come to rest within Arkansas. As we discussed in Mississippi River, the United States Supreme Court jurisprudence on the “come to rest” test was implicitly integrated into this Act, and continues to be dispositive. In addition, since adoption of the Act, this сourt has applied the “come to rest” test in a few cases. In Pfeiffer v. State,
In American Television Co., Inc. v. Hervey,
As is clear from the reasoning in the above cases, for purposes of the “come to rest” test, what is important is not that the property to be taxed actually stopped moving, but that its transportation in interstate commerce had ceased. Under Ark.Code Ann. § 26-53-106(b), property comes to rest in Arkansas when it reaches a point where it can satisfy the purpose— whether for use, storage, distribution or consumption — fоr which it was put in interstate commerce and sent to Arkansas. With this finding, we wish to clarify our holding in Mississippi River. In holding that the compressor gas could not be taxed because it had remained in continuous motion until combustion, we did not mean that because the gas particles had not literally ceased to move, they had not come to rest. Rather, the compressor gas had not ceased its transportation within the stream of commerce before combustion, and the act of combustion did not remove it frоm the stream. Indeed, the only purpose that the | ^compressor gas ever served was as an instrument of interstate commerce. Thus, the gas never came to rest in Arkansas.
In the case before us now, the gas at issue was not combusted in order to faсilitate interstate commerce. Yet, Appellant wishes us to find that it was not taxable because the gas was in constant motion up until the point of combustion.
Affirmed.
Notes
. The 2003 amendment to this statute does not affect our analysis.
. The circuit court declined to find that the gаs was in constant motion, and we do not hold now that the circuit court erred in any way on this point. The circuit court found that the gas moved through the interstate pipeline, entered Appellant’s internal gas lines, and then continued to move through the gas lines to locations within Appellant's plant where the gas could be combusted. This language is sufficient to describe the circumstances of this case. It is clear to us that Appellant only sought a finding that the gas was in constant motion in order to complement its argument that Mississippi River is directly on point.
