Sunoco Loses Bid for NY Franchise Tax Refund on Oil Transactions

A Sunoco subsidiary won’t get a $2.64 million refund of New York corporation franchise tax after a divided state tribunal rejected how the company treated certain oil exchanges.

At issue are “buy/sell transactions” where Sunoco would buy inventory from another oil company to fulfill a customer order because the other company’s oil was closer to the customer, in order to reduce transportation costs. In exchange, Sunoco would sell the same amount of oil to the other company in a different location.

In a 2-1 opinion posted Tuesday, the New York Tax Appeals Tribunal agreed with an administrative law judge’s ruling ...