Apache Corporation and Subs

21-21

On March 31, 2017, the Department issued the Taxpayer an assessment for corporate income tax, penalty and interest for tax year 2015. On June 28, 2017, the Taxpayer protested the assessment. This protest involved the consideration of several points in order to determine whether the Taxpayer’s foreign subsidiaries were unitary corporations with the Taxpayer, whether certain sources of income were considered business or non-business income for purposes of New Mexico apportionment, whether an apportioned share of a combined group of unitary corporations’ foreign dividend income, Subpart F income, and other deemed foreign subsidiary income, was subject to New Mexico corporate income tax, and whether New Mexico’s treatment of foreign subsidiary income violated the Foreign Commerce Clause or the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. While the Hearing Officer determined that the Taxpayer was entitled to the Department’s proposed 30% exclusion alternative apportionment method to address what was an obvious distortion under the original assessment, the removal of the non-unitary dividends generated by one subsidiary, and the abatement of penalty associated with those liabilities, the Hearing found the Taxpayer’s protest otherwise unpersuasive. Having made this determination, the protest was granted in part and denied in part.