New Hampshire Justices Dissect Hologic’s Business Tax Method

The New Hampshire high court struggled at oral arguments Tuesday with the state revenue department’s argument that Hologic Inc. can’t use a subsidiary’s capital losses to offset another subsidiary’s capital gains for state business tax purposes.

Solicitor General Anthony J. Galdieri asked the state Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that the department’s denial of Hologic’s offsetting method clearly violated the plain language of the state’s combined reporting provisions. But Chief Justice Gordon J. MacDonald pressed Galdieri on whether the department’s interpretation of the reporting provisions was in line with unitary business theory, wherein a business treats its ...