Whether the defendant-Detroit Medical Center (a nonprofit entity) is not a “corporation” under the Tax Code & entitled to a higher interest rate on its tax refund under 26 USC § 6621(a)(1); Trustees of Dartmouth Coll. v. Woodward; The Tax Code’s definition of a corporation; §§ 7701(a)(3) & (c); Morissette v. United States; Oxford English Dictionary (2d ed.); O’Neil v. United States; Russello v. United States; Maimonides Med. Ctr. v. United States (2d Cir.)

[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] The court affirmed the district court’s ruling that the defendant-Detroit Medical Center, a nonprofit entity incorporated under state law, was a “corporation,” and not entitled to the higher rate of interest on the refund of its tax overpayment. The Center was a corporation as defined in the Tax Code. Historically, “courts have permitted charitable organizations to be treated as corporations. . . . Because the common law understanding of ‘corporation’ has consistently included nonprofit corporations like Detroit Medical Center, it is fair to infer that the Internal Revenue Code uses the term in that same sense in § 6621.” The court reviewed several sections of the Code and concluded that “[t]he word ‘corporation,’ . . . often covers nonprofits.” The court rejected the Center’s arguments that the lower interest rate on an overpayment “applies to the refund only if the entity is a C corporation—a type of for-profit corporation[,]” and that “the default meaning of ‘corporation' is C corporation throughout the Internal Revenue Code.” It looked to a Second Circuit case (Maimonides) that considered “this same issue and reached the same conclusion”— “The word ‘corporation’ ‘ordinarily refers to both for-profit and  nonprofit entities,’ . . .; the key feature of the background definition is not whether the entity is a for-profit operation but whether state law has conferred corporate status on the entity, . . .; other uses of ‘corporation’ throughout the Code include incorporated nonprofit organizations, . . . ; and ‘corporation’ does not mean ‘C corporation’ in § 6621(a)(1) because the cross-reference in that section defines ‘taxable period, not ‘corporation[.]’”