Ranniger v. Iowa Department of Revenue & Finance

TERNUS, Chief Justice.

Appellants, Gaylin R. Ranniger and Janet L. Ranniger, protested an income tax assessment by the appellee, Iowa Department of Revenue and Finance, claiming entitlement to an exclusion from taxation on net capital gains from the sale of a business under Iowa Code section 422.7(21) (1999). The department denied the protest, concluding the taxpayers were not entitled to the capital-gains exclusion because Gaylin Ranniger’s sale of his interest in an accounting partnership did not qualify as “the sale of a business” under the statutory definition of that term. See Iowa Code §…