Elite Well Services LLC
On July 10, 2018, the Department denied the Taxpayer’s claim for refund of $3,287,058.23 for a high wage tax credit. On October 9, 2018, the Taxpayer filed a formal protest of the denial. Since there was no genuine dispute as to any material facts in the case, the Hearing Officer granted the Department’s request for a summary judgment. The issue to resolved in the protest was whether the Taxpayer could file a claim for refund as an alternative to filing a timely protest of a denial of an application for a tax credit. The statute states that the right to claim the high-wage jobs tax credit requires that the application for the tax credit be approved by the Department. The Taxpayer filed an application for the credit, but it was then denied. The Taxpayer then failed to file a protest of the denial of the Credit within 90 days. At the end of this period, the Hearing Officer found that the denial of the claim for the credit was indisputable. The Taxpayer argued that by submitting another application for refund, which was then again denied, the window for protest had once again opened for another 90 days and the denial of the same credit could again be protested. But the Hearing Officer disagreed, determining that this view, that any denial of a credit could be reopened again simply by filing another application for refund, would mean that the 90 days required in statute was negated. The only appropriate and available remedy for a denial of an application for a tax credit is to file a protest within 90 days of the denial as the statute states. When the taxpayer failed to do this, there was no alternative method to protest the denial of the tax credit application. This having been decided, the Protest was denied.