Ambrose v. Commissioner

18 T.C. 690, 1952 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 148
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedJune 30, 1952
DocketDocket No. 29340
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 18 T.C. 690 (Ambrose v. Commissioner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Tax Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ambrose v. Commissioner, 18 T.C. 690, 1952 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 148 (tax 1952).

Opinions

OPINION.

HaRRON, Judge:

The question is whether the petitioner is entitled, under section 124 (d) (4) of the Code, to have income tax for 1943 recomputed to give effect to a retroactive revision of the amount of the amortization deduction on the emergency facility which he owned. He owned the property in 1945 for a period of 6 months until it was taken by the United States Government under condemnation proceedings on June 7, 1945, and in bis income tax return for 1945 be computed tbe amortization deduction on tbe basis of an amortization period of 32 months, i. e., from February 1943, to and including September 30, 1945, which latter date was tbe end of the emergency period as defined in section 124 (e) (2). Section 124 (d) (1) of tbe Code provides that a taxpayer may elect to terminate tbe amortization period with respect to an emergency facility as of tbe end of the month in which tbe presidential proclamation ending the emergency period occurred. Section 124 (d) (4) of the Code provides the method for making the election under section 124 (d) (1). Regulations 111, section 29.124-5-(e), page 531, sets forth the steps to be taken in order to make an election under section 124 (d) (1). The petitioner complied with the Commissioner’s regulation by filing a written statement of his election with the Commissioner on November 21, 1945. Also, the petitioner, in his income tax return for 1945, actually computed the amount of the amortization deduction with respect to the emergency facility on the basis of an amortization period of 32 months rather than 60 months. The provisions of section 124 (d) (1) and 124 (d) (4) are set forth in the margin.5

Although the question to be decided relates only to the year 1943, the year before us in this proceeding, the issue will affect the year 1944 if the question is decided for the petitioner.

The respondent has determined that the petitioner did not have the right to make the election under sections 124 (d) (1) and (4) because lie did not own the emergency facility at the end of the emergency period, September 30, 1945.

The petitioner, prior to 1943, conducted an aviation training school which was located on leased jiroperty. He had a contract with the United States Army for the training of soldiers at his school. He gaye consideration to the matter of investing his capital in the property. Before he did so, he was granted a Necessity Certificate by the War Department which certified that the property was necessary in the interest of national defense during the emergency period. He invested his capital in the property in January 1943, and he elected, in his income tax return for 1943, to take amortization deductions under section 23 (t) in lieu of depreciation deductions over the useful life of the property under section 23 (1). He computed the amor-, tization deduction' for 1943 on the basis of an amortization period of 60 months under sections 124 (a) and (b). He held the emergency facility during all of 1943,1944, and 6 months of 1945. He gave up the property involuntarily when the Government took it through condemnation proceedings on June 7, 1945. He was entitled to take amortization deductions under section 23 (t) for as long as he owned the property. In this proceeding we have a very narrow question. Although the issue arises in connection with the determination of the tax for 1943, it is necessary to consider what right, if any, the petitioner had with respect to computing his amortization deduction for the 6 months of 1945 during which he held the property. He did not own the property on September 30, 1945, the end of the emergency period. Under the facts, the narrow aspect of the question is whether ownership of the property during part of 1945, but not on the date of the end of the emergency period in 1945, suffices in applying the provisions of sections 124 (d) (1) and (4).

The view of the respondent, under the facts of this proceeding, represents a very narrow interpretation of all of the provisions of section 124 of the Code, and means that a taxpayer who made the election under sections 124 (a) and (b) to amortize the cost of an emergency facility over a period of 60 months cannot make any adjustment of the amortization period so as to have it terminate as of the end of the emergency period, September 30, 1945, unless he owned the emergency facility on that date, even though he owned the emergency facility during the year in which the emergency period ended. This view should not be approved because it restricts the application of section 124 (d) and, in effect, limits the right to exercise the election provided by section 124 so that no emergency facility can be amortized on the basis of an amortization period which terminates with the end of the emergency period if the emergency facility was disposed of at any time during a taxable year ending in 1945.

It is clear that the Congress intended to make a liberal provision for the amortization of an emergency facility by allowing the amortization at an accelerated rate; and that section 124 was enacted as a relief provision giving taxpayers who invested capital in emergency facilities a more favorable allowance for amortization deductions than section 23 (1) provided. Ways and Means Committee, H. Bept. No. 2894, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., pp. 16, 38 (1940-2 C. B. pp. 496, 507-8).

Beading section 124 as a whole, the owner of an emergency facility was given the right, if he so elected, to amortize the cost thereof over a period of 60 months, or less, from the month following acquisition. In the first instance, the emergency period was categorically fixed at 60 months, or 5 years, by the provisions of section 124 (a) ; but in section 124 (e) (2) provision was made for fixing the date of the termination of the emergency facility by presidential proclamation. Since the event which would terminate the emergency facility could not be known at the time a taxpayer made his election under section 124 (a), it was necessary to provide a method for giving effect to the termination of the emergency facility, retroactively. This was done by allowing a second election to be made under section 124 (d) (1) under which the end of the amortization period would coincide with the end of the emergency period. The provisions of section 124 (d) (4) likewise provided a method for giving retroactive effect to the event — the proclamation ending the emergency period. Such retroactive effect is given by allowing recomputation of the tax for earlier years on the basis of the allowance of amortization deductions in the earlier years, recomputed on the basis of an amortization period of less than 60 months.

The petitioner in this proceeding was in a position to receive the benefits of sections 124 (d) (1) and (4) because he owned the emergency facility during the year in which the emergency period ended. He was in an entirely different position than was the taxpayer in Ken-Bad Transmitting Tube Corporation, 10 T. C. 1217, revd. 180 F. 2d 940. In that proceeding the taxpayer corporation acquired emergency facilities during 1942 and 1943, but on June 30, 1943, it transferred all of its assets to its parent corporation, Ken-Bad Tube & Lamp Corporation, in exchange for its outstanding stock — a tax-free exchange — and then went out of existence. The transferee corporation disposed of all of the emergency facility properties by sale for cash on January 2,1945.

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Related

Avco Mfg. Corp. v. Commissioner
25 T.C. 975 (U.S. Tax Court, 1956)
Ambrose v. Commissioner
18 T.C. 690 (U.S. Tax Court, 1952)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
18 T.C. 690, 1952 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 148, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ambrose-v-commissioner-tax-1952.