Indiana use tax: Telephone directory publisher not subject to use tax on paper/directories

Ameritech Publishing, Inc. v. Department, Ind. Tax Ct. (11/16/09). Citing Morton Buildings, Inc. v. Indiana Department of State Revenue, Ind. Tax Ct. (2004) and its earlier ruling involving the same telephone directory publisher and issue but different tax years, Ameritech Publishing, Inc. v. Indiana Department of State Revenue, Ind. Tax Ct. (2006), the Indiana Tax Court granted summary judgment for the telephone directory publisher that it was not subject to Indiana use tax on its outof-state purchases of paper and printing services, nor on its produced telephone directories. The Court once again reasoned that use tax should not be imposed, because:
- The paper was acquired in a retail transaction but not "used" in Indiana,
- The publisher did not acquire tangible personal property when it purchased the Printing services, and
- While the publisher used its telephone directories in Indiana, it did not acquire them in a "retail" transaction.

Specifically, the publisher's raw materials purchased at retail were consumed in an out-of-state production process and, therefore, never used in Indiana. The department unsuccessfully claimed that it had presented new arguments in this case that it had not asserted in the first Ameritech Publishing case; however, the Court found that these "new" arguments were "nothing more than reiterations" of the department's failed arguments from the first case.