Could a taxpayer wait until full payment to claim refunds for earlier partial payments, or avoid section 6902 because the payments were voluntary?

Plain-English summary

The Board's legal staff treated voluntary payments and amounts collected involuntarily the same under the refund limitation statute. A taxpayer could not avoid the deadline merely because it chose to make the payment.

The taxpayer also argued that an earlier Board employee letter allowed a choice: claim within six months after each partial payment or wait until the liability was fully paid. Legal staff rejected that reading. It treated the “full payment” instruction as applying when the liability was paid in full and the separate instruction as requiring a timely claim for each partial payment.

Even if the earlier letter were misleading, legal staff concluded that the Board, as an administrative agency, lacked power to grant the requested equitable relief or estop itself from applying section 6902.

Common questions

Did the statute distinguish voluntary payments from involuntary collections?

No, according to the letter.

Could the taxpayer wait until the final installment to claim all partial payments?

No.

Could the Board disregard the deadline as equitable relief?

Legal staff said the Board lacked that power.

Citations and references

• California Revenue and Taxation Code section 6902 — refund limitation statute applied to voluntary partial payments
• Chahine v. State Board of Equalization (1990) 222 Cal.App.3d 485 — payment-limitations decision discussed; staff rejected a voluntary-payment distinction
• Bloniarz v. Roloson (1969) 70 Cal.2d 143 — cited for limits on a non-equity tribunal's power to consider equitable factors

Source

• Annotated Legal Opinions collection: https://cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/annotations-menu.htm
• Annotation page: https://cdtfa.ca.gov/lawguides/vol2/suta/465-0000-all.html
• Original supporting opinion: https://cdtfa.ca.gov/lawguides/annotations/465-0215.pdf

Original ruling text

465.0215

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION
1020 N STREET, SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
(P.O. BOX 942879, SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 94279-0001)
(916) 445-6450

May 31, 1991

Mr. S--- L. H----- --- & --XXX --- ----- ---, CA XXXXX
C--- Corporation
SC -- XX-XXXXXX
Dear Mr. H---:
This is reply to your November 29, 1990 letter regarding this Board’s position as to the application of Revenue and Taxation Code section 6902 to a claim for refund of sales tax filed by C--- Corporation. You believe that, assuming the case Chahine v. State Board of Equalization, 222 Cal.App.3d 485 (1990), was correctly decided, it is nonetheless distinguishable under the facts of your client’s case, because the Chahine case pertained to amounts that were at least partially collected involuntarily. As you noted, there is dicta in the Chahine case concerning that issue; however, as we noted in our October 29, 1990 letter to you, it is the Board’s position that the same result obtains where the taxpayer makes voluntary payments. We believe the Board’s position would be upheld by the courts. The statute makes no distinction between voluntary payments and payments collected involuntarily. You also believe that Mr. C. W. Philpot’s August 19, 1985 letter expressly tolled the application of section 6902 where the letter states: “Your legal recourse is that, (1) upon full payment of the liability; or (2) for each partial payment made against the amount due; you should file a claim for refund within six months from the date payment was made for any amount believed to have been overpaid.”

Mr. S--- L. H---

-2-

February 1, 1991
465.0215

You believe that, by employing the disjunctive “or,” the letter gives the taxpayer a choice of filing a refund claim within six months of a partial payment or within six months of full payment. We believe that it is obvious that alternative (1) in the quoted paragraph contemplates payment in full. If alternative (1) pertained to partial payments, there would be no need for alternative (2). Even were we to agree with your interpretation, you would be asking the Board to invoke equitable relief; that is, to consider itself estopped from applying section 6902 to this case. The California Supreme Court held in the case, Bloniarz v. Roloson, 70 Cal.2d 143 (1969), that municipal courts do not have the power to consider the extrinsic factors that invoke the jurisdiction of equity. The Board’s legal staff has taken the position that it necessarily follows that the Board, an administrative agency, does not have such power. Very truly yours,

Ronald L. Dick
Senior Tax Counsel
RLD:sr
cc:

Out-of-State District Administrator