Beaudry Motor Co., an Arizona Corporation v. United States

ORDER

The Memorandum disposition filed September 16, 1996, is redesignated as an authored Opinion by Judge Leavy.

OPINION

The government appeals from the district court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of Beaudry Motor Company (“Beaudry”) on the latter’s claim for a refund of overpaid taxes, arguing that the court should have rejected the claim as untimely. We review de novo, see Schwartz v. United States, 67 F.3d 838, 839 (9th Cir.1995) (as amended), and we reverse.

Beaudry claimed investment tax credits (“ITCs”) for qualified property on both its 1983 and 1984 corporate tax returns. When Beaudry later disposed of that property before its estimated useful life had expired, Beaudry reported a partial ITC recapture of $34,645 on its 1986 return. As the result of its filing an amended return for 1985 reporting a net operating loss (“NOL”) for that year of $511,290, Beaudry also amended its returns for both 1983 and 1984 in order to claim tax refunds resulting from the carrying back of the 1985 NOL to 1983 and 1984.

Because Beaudry could no longer claim or derive any benefit from the ITCs for 1983 and 1984, and no longer had any ITC to recapture in 1986, it filed a second…