OCTOBER TERM, 2002
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit
No. 01-1209. Argued December 9, 2002—Decided March 4, 2003*
Under a 1971 statute providing special tax treatment for export sales made by an American manufacturer through a subsidiary that qualified as a "domestic international sales corporation" (DISC), no tax is payable on the DISC's retained income until it is distributed. See 26 U. S. C. §§ 991-997. The statute thus provides an incentive to maximize the DISC's share—and to minimize the parent's share—of the parties' aggregate income from export sales. The statute provides three alternative ways for a parent to divert a limited portion of its income to the DISC. See §§ 994(a)(1)-(3). The alternative that The Boeing Company chose limited the DISC's taxable income to a little over half of the parties "combined taxable income" (CTI). In 1984, the "foreign sales corporation" (FSC) provisions replaced the DISC provisions. As under the DISC regime, it is in the parent's interest to maximize the FSC's share of the taxable income generated by export sales. Because most of the differences between these regimes are immaterial to this suit, the Court's analysis focuses mainly on the DISC provisions. The Treasury Regulation at issue, 26 CFR § 1.861-8(e)(3) (1979), governs the accounting for research and development (R&D) expenses when a taxpayer elects to take a current deduction, telling the taxpaying parent and its DISC "what" must be treated as a cost when calculating CTI, and "how" those costs should be (a) allocated among different products and (b) apportioned between the DISC and its parent. With respect to the "what" question, the regulation includes a list of Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) categories (e. g., transportation equipment) and requires that R&D for any product within the same category as the exported product be taken into account. The regulations use gross receipts from sales as the basis for both "how" questions. Boeing organized its internal operations along product lines (e. g., aircraft model 767) for management and accounting purposes, each of which constituted a separate "program" within the organization; and $3.6 billion of its R&D expenses were spent on "Company Sponsored Product Development," i. e., product-specific research. Boeing's accountants treated all
*Together with No. 01-1382, United States v. Boeing Sales Corp. et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
437
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