M. v. Marine Co. v. State Tax Commission

The eight appellants challenge the additional assessment of income taxes against each of them for the years 1972, 1973, 1974
and 1975. Each appellant is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Marine Petroleum Company. Each subsidiary and its parent are Missouri
corporations with a joint office in St. Louis. In addition to the eight subsidiaries that are the taxpayers here, the parent
owns twelve other subsidiaries that also are Missouri corporations. Appellant-taxpayers own barges, a towboat and steel-tank
trucks. They generate income from this ownership by renting the same to Marine Transport Company (one of the twelve other
subsidiaries) and Marine Petroleum Company (the parent corporation). The income to appellants from the rental of this property
is the only income involved in this appeal. Marine Transport Company and Marine Petroleum Company, the operators of these
barges, towboat and trucks, are not parties to this appeal and their right to apportion and allocate their income from that
operation is not presented here. The property owned by appellants is used by the lessee corporations in the interstate transportation
and sale of petroleum and petroleum products. Revenue laws being involved, appellate jurisdiction rests with this Court. Mo.
Const. art. V, § 3. For purposes of computing their income tax, appellants allocated their income as having been earned within and without the
state pursuant to § 143.040, RSMo 1969, 1 and § 143.451, RSMo, Supp. 1973. 2