| MeadWestvaco Corp. v. Illinois Dept. of Revenue | ||||||
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Supreme Court of the United States |
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| Argued January 16, 2008 Decided April 15, 2008 |
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| Full case name | MeadWestvaco Corp., Successor in Interest to Mead Corp. v. Illinois Department of Revenue, et al. | |||||
| Docket nos. | 06-1413 | |||||
| Citations | 553 U.S. 16 (more) 128 S.Ct. 1498, 170 L.Ed.2d 404 |
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| Prior history | Certiorari to the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District | |||||
| Holding | ||||||
| The state courts erred in considering whether Lexis served an “operational purpose” in Mead’s business after determining that Lexis and Mead were not unitary. | ||||||
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| Case opinions | ||||||
| Majority | Alito, joined by unanimous court | |||||
| Concurrence | Thomas | |||||
MeadWestvaco Corp. v. Illinois Dept. of Revenue, 553 U.S. 16 (2008) is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the extent a state may tax companies that are not based in their state.
Mead, a corporation based out of Ohio, owned Lexis-Nexis, which was based out of Illinois. Mead sold Lexis, and Illinois maintained that Mead must pay them a proportionate capital-gains tax. Illinois asserted that Mead and Lexis were integrated to the extent required for the "unitary business rule". This rule allowed states to tax a proportionate share of the value generated by an interstate corporation.
The Supreme Court held that the two businesses were not integrated enough to be considered a "unitary business" and Illinois was not allowed to tax Mead on the Lexis sale.