State v. Phillips Petroleum Co.

RUSSELL, Judge.

In February 1988 the Alabama Department of Revenue (Department) entered a final assessment against Phillips Petroleum Company (Phillips) for taxes purportedly due under the provisions of §§ 40-20-1 to -13 and § 9-17-25, Ala.Code 1975. Those statutes provide for the levy of a tax on oil and gas valued in their raw and untreated state at the point of production, i.e., severance from the ground at the mouth of the well. The Department’s assessment was levied with respect to gas that Phillips — and other companies for whom Phillips remits taxes— had severed from the Chatom Field in…