Outcome Uncertain After Federal Circuit Oral Argument In Wells Fargo Interest Netting Case

The Federal Circuit heard argument on November 5 in the government's appeal in Wells Fargo. The Court of Federal Claims had upheld the taxpayer's claim for interest netting based on overlapping periods of interest for companies that later became part of Wells Fargo following statutory mergers. See our prior report here.

The panel consisted of Judge Lourie and the two most recent appointments to the Federal Circuit, Judges Hughes and Stoll. Although Judge Lourie was silent during the argument, the latter two judges posed questions of both sides. Both of those judges expressed skepticism of the government's position that it is entitled to prevail on the authority of the Federal Circuit's earlier decision in Energy East Corp. v. United States, 645 F.3d 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2011), and of its position that identity of the taxpayer identification number (TIN) should be the litmus test of "same taxpayer." At the same time, the judges expressed concern that the logic of the taxpayer's position could lead to expanding the scope of interest netting beyond the scope of what Congress intended, and even create an improper incentive for companies to merge in order to obtain interest netting benefits. Overall, the questioning was evenhanded, and the outcome of the appeal will remain in doubt until a decision is rendered, although Judge Hughes did appear to lean towards the view that Wells Fargo has a strong case for interest netting on its particular facts.

Shortly after government counsel began the argument, Judge Hughes began to question her about whether Energy East is distinguishable because it involved two companies who filed a consolidated return (and hence were still distinct companies), rather than companies that had merged into one new company. Although she eventually acknowledged that this factual difference could be significant in some cases, government counsel pointed out that the Energy East court did not rely on the fact that the companies were consolidated rather than merged. Instead, that court relied on the non-consolidated status of the companies at the time of the overpayment and underpayment interest payments. That approach of focusing on the time of payment, she argued, was fatal to Wells Fargo's case because the TINs were not the same at the time of the respective interest payments (pre-merger and post-merger respectively). The court returned to Energy East on the government's rebuttal, with Judge Stoll observing that the portion of the...