The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled Monday that a lower court lacked jurisdiction over Pfizer Inc.'s challenge to more than $8 million in interest it was denied for overpaying the Internal Revenue Service on its 2008 tax returns, saying the lawsuit could only be brought in U.S. Federal Claims Court.

The decision from a three-judge panel of the appeals court exposed a circuit split on whether a dispute for "overpayment interest" qualifies as the type of action that gives federal district courts concurrent jurisdiction over such suits involving the IRS.

The Second Circuit's ruling staked out a position contrary the Sixth Circuit's 2005 holding that overpayment interest amounted to a "sum" that was alleged to be "excessive or in any manner wrongfully collected" under U.S. tax laws. In Monday's ruling, the Second Circuit said overpayment interest was simply a "general debt" of the government and did not constitute an integral part of the tax.

"Thus overpayment interest is a straightforward claim against the federal government and is therefore covered under the Tucker Act, which vests exclusive jurisdiction in the United States Court of Federal Claims," Second Circuit Judge John M. Walker Jr. wrote in a 12-page opinion on behalf of the court.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, which argued of behalf of the government, on Monday declined to comment on the ruling. An attorney for Pfizer was not immediately available to comment.

According to court documents, Pfizer's 2008 federal income tax return showed that it had overpaid by nearly $770 million. The company asked the IRS to refund $500 million and apply the remaining balance to its estimated tax for the following year. Though Pfizer never received its refund checks, the IRS did later deposit the $500 million refund directly into Pfizer's bank account.

Three years later, Pfizer filed a claim requesting interest on the tax overpayment, but the IRS rejected the request in 2013, saying its records indicated that the refund checks had issued in October 2009.

The company filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in March 2016. U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield later dismissed the case on statute-of-limitations grounds, finding that the suit was filed outside of the two-year window that the government said applied under the tax code.

On appeal, however, Walker said the district court never had subject-matter jurisdiction over the dispute and transferred the case to the Court of Federal Claims. He was joined on the panel by Second Circuit Judges Raymond Joseph Lohier Jr. and Peter Hall.

In a separate concurring opinion, Hall agreed with Walker's analysis, but said that Pfizer also would have been "completely out of luck" under the two-year statute of limitations, and not the six-year period that Pfizer had advocated.

"Had we determined that jurisdiction existed, therefore, we would have had to conclude that the suit was properly dismissed because Pfizer failed to file the suit within two years of May 10, 2013, when the IRS sent a notice disallowing Pfizer's claim," Hall said.

Pfizer was represented by Robert S. Walton, Russell R. Young and Susan E. Ryba of Baker McKenzie in Chicago.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christine S. Poscablo and Christopher Connolly represented the government in the case.

The case was captioned Pfizer v. United States.

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