California Justices Weigh City’s Oil Industry Tax Procedures

The California Supreme Court asked measured questions at oral arguments Wednesday in a Marathon Petroleum Corp. subsidiary’s case alleging a city wrongfully established its own tax administrative review requirements on top of the state’s.

Tesoro Refining & Marketing Co., which operates an oil refinery partially located in Carson, Calif., argued that the city imposed its oil industry business license tax on refining activity that took place in the other jurisdictions that house the refinery for 2017 to 2018. A state appeals court ruled in 2025 that Tesoro was required to exhaust the city’s administrative procedures before bringing the case to state ...