State and Local Tax Alert – February 2014

On January 15, 2014, in Graphic Packaging Corp. v. Combs, Cause No. D-1-GN-12-003038, the District Court of Travis County, Texas, 353rd Judicial District (the “District Court”), issued an order granting the Comptroller’s motion for summary judgment, and issued an order denying Graphic Packaging Corporation’s (“Graphic’s”) motion for summary judgment. The issue raised in the case was whether Graphic was entitled to elect to use the Multistate Tax Compact (the “Compact”) as the basis for an evenly-weighted three-factor apportionment formula to apportion its Revised Franchise Tax (commonly referred to as the “Margins Tax”) base in lieu of the standard single-receipts factor