325 A.2d 466 | Conn. Super. Ct. | 1974
The plaintiff Bryan H. Marsh was also a plaintiff in Kellems v. Brown,
On October 25, 1972, the plaintiffs filed a claim for a refund with the commissioner, seeking $2657 as the amount of the overpayment resulting from the erroneous instructions regarding the taxability of long-term capital gains, plus interest at 6 percent from April 15, 1972, to the date of payment of the refund. Some time after the decision in Kellems v.Brown, supra, the commissioner made a public announcement that taxpayers would not have to file refund claims and that overpayments would be refunded automatically in due course. It is not clear from the stipulation in this case whether this announcement came before or after the plaintiffs filed their claim. On March 28, 1973, the plaintiffs received a check for $2657, the amount of the overpayment, but no amount in payment of the interest claimed. Upon further inquiry it appeared that the interest claim had been rejected because a "recent Supreme Court decision made no provision for payment of interest on refunds." The plaintiffs then requested a hearing on their interest claim, pursuant to General Statutes §
The first ground urged by the defendant commits the fallacy of argumentum in orbem. It is argued that because the commissioner can find no statutory authority for payment of interest on a refund claim, the plaintiffs are not aggrieved by any determination made under the taxation statutes, and therefore the court is precluded from deciding whether there is any such authority. The question begging nature of this argument is obvious. Indeed, the defendant has agreed in the stipulation that "if the plaintiffs are entitled by law to interest on their refund, the refusal by the defendant to pay such interest makes the plaintiffs aggrieved." If the defendant's reasoning were to be followed, no decision of the commissioner would be appealable, because every claim he denies must ultimately be based on his conclusion that the statutes involved do *137 not authorize him to approve the claim, even where he may have some discretion in determining the facts.
The second ground is equally fallacious. The defendant contends in his brief that his letters refusing to pay the claim were merely "informational statements informing the plaintiffs that no authority existed for payment of the requested interest." It is familiar that "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," and it follows that a denial of a claim, in whatever prose it may be couched, is equivalent to disallowance, so far as the taxpayer is concerned, and an appeal may be taken.
Several tax appeal statutes make no express provision for interest upon refunds ordered by the *138
court. Places of amusement tax, General Statutes § 12-337 ("refund of so much of such tax as was illegally assessed"); gasoline and special fuel tax, §
The language of General Statutes §
In contrast to General Statutes §
The statutory language empowering the commissioner to "make such order in the premises as appears to him just and lawful" seems quite broad and general in contrast to the description of his authority in some other taxation statutes, such as the special fuels tax statute, § 12-471 (if "taxes or interest or penalties imposed ... have been erroneously or illegally collected ... [the] user shall be entitled to a refund thereof"); or the succession and transfer tax statute, §
The incongruity of statutes providing for an administrative refund without interest and a refund upon appeal with interest has received judicial sanction.Cannon v. Maxwell,
In two cases involving the corporation business tax, where the taxpayer successfully appealed the determination of the commissioner and a refund was directed by the court, interest was also ordered on the amount of the refund. Lenox Realty Co. v.Hackett,
It is an obsolete notion that the state should not be required to pay interest on tax refunds, especially where, as in this case, it actually has profited by investing the overpaid taxes in interest bearing securities. Such considerations have impelled some courts to change previous rulings on the subject.Milwaukee v. Firemen Relief Assn.,
Nevertheless, the intention of the legislature must prevail where it is ascertainable. Unless the amendments to the corporation business tax and the public service company tax statutes which expressly allow interest on administrative refunds are to be deemed superfluous, the pertinent provisions of these statutes did not previously provide for payment of such interest by the commissioner. The same construction must be given to the same language when the legislature copied these provisions in enacting §§
It is ordered that judgment enter dismissing the appeal.