Ann Arbor R.R. v. Commissioner

29 B.T.A. 331, 1933 BTA LEXIS 958
CourtUnited States Board of Tax Appeals
DecidedNovember 14, 1933
DocketDocket Nos. 25869, 35337.
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 29 B.T.A. 331 (Ann Arbor R.R. v. Commissioner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Board of Tax Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ann Arbor R.R. v. Commissioner, 29 B.T.A. 331, 1933 BTA LEXIS 958 (bta 1933).

Opinion

[339]*339OPINION.

SteRnhagen :

As shown in the preliminary statement, several of the assignments of error have been removed from controversy. The adjustment of these matters will be reflected in the final judgment. The matters at issue are considered in this opinion under Roman numerals which are correlated to the findings of fact.

I.

The issue covered by the second assignment is the propriety of including the sp-oalled guaranty income received from the United [340]*340States, by virtue of section 209 (c) of the Transportation Act, 1920, within petitioners’ taxable income. In view of Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. United States, 286 U.S. 285, the petitioners now concede that the inclusion was proper, and the respondent’s determination is therefore affirmed.

II.

The petitioners urge that the aforesaid guaranty income paid by the United States pursuant to section 209 of the Transportation Act of 1920, is subject only to an 8 percent rate of tax and not the ordinary 10 percent rate. They argue that, since the income received during Federal control as just compensation was relieved from the normal tax of 2 percent, see New York, Ontario & Western Ry. Co., 1 B.T.A. 1172, and the guaranty income was measured by the same standard, namely, the railway operating income of the test period, the guaranty income must be likewise relieved. Otherwise, it is said, the guaranty income will fall short of its purpose to give the carrier an equal measure of operating income with that of the pre-war period.

This view can not, we think, be sustained. The statute does not so provide expressly and there is no reason for its implication. The Ontario <& Western case not only involved an entirely different question, whether the express release from the normal tax of 2 percent could itself be treated as taxable income, but was founded in a special provision of the Revenue Act of 1918, which has no force here. Union Pacific R.R. Co., 26 B.T.A. 1126; New York, Chicago & St. Louis R.R. Co., 26 B.T.A. 1229. Section 230 (b) was by its terms limited to the purposes of the Federal Control Act, which ended February 28, 1920, and the lower tax' rate therein prescribed was clearly not, without more, to be applied to the income derived after that date. That this is true as to income actually earned from operations should be beyond doubt. So that a carrier, which by reason of its adequate earnings could not invoke the guaranty, could furthermore not claim an 8 percent tax rate. See Texas & Pacific Ry. Co. v. United States, 286 U.S. 285. A Congressional intent to give more than this to a carrier receiving its income through the guaranty we may suppose would be plainly stated and not left for a holdover construction-of an obsolete provision covering Federal control.

III.

Petitioners urge that the respondent has erroneously disallowed $598,111.26 of the deduction for maintenance of way and structures and of equipment .during the period of the last ten months of 1920. This amount is part of the actual expenditures for the period which were accounted for as maintenance, but the disallowance is based [341]*341on the respondent’s determination that to this extent the petitioners’ ostensible maintenance cost was really not its own, but a burden assumed by the Director General, the liability for which accrued during the ten-month period. See Continental Tie & Lumber Co. v. United States, 286 U.S. 290.

Unlike New York, Chicago & St. Louis R.R. Co., supra, there is no evidence here, outside the carriers’ claim, that the Director General failed in his contractual duty to maintain the petitioners’ properties adequately during Federal control. But the respondent has determined that they received, in their final settlements in 1921, allowances for undermaintenance of their properties during Federal control in the respective amounts of $674,191.51 and $23,979.75, a total of $598,171.26, and this is the amount by which the respondent has reduced the petitioners’ deduction for maintenance expenses. As in New York, Chicago & St. Louis R.R. Co., the question arises not because respondent calls the Director General’s allowance income, but because he reduces the petitioners’ deduction for maintenance expense by the amount of the Director General’s allowance. Thus the issue, as to the measure of petitioners’ actual and deductible maintenance expenses, is quite different from Terminal R.R. Assn. of St. Louis v. Commissioner, 61 Fed. (2d) 166; certiorari denied, 288 U.S. 604; 17 B.T.A. 1135; Norfolk Southern R.R. Co. v. Commissioner, 63 Fed. (2d) 304; 290 U.S. 672 ; 22 B.T.A. 302; and Chicago & North Western Ry. Co. v. Commissioner, 66 Fed. (2d) 61; 290 U.S. 672; 22 B.T.A. 1407. In those cases whether gross income was received as a matter of fact (Terminal R.R. Assn. of St. Louis, supra), or whether, being received in fact, the amount was gross income in law (Norfolk Southern R.R. Co., supra, and Chicago & North Western Ry. Co., supra), were questions which imposed a different and less burden on the petitioning taxpayer than the question of his right, despite the respondents determination, to deduct all amounts expended for maintenance without regard for the extent to which, as determined by respondent, such expenditures embodied an amount derived from the Director General in discharge of his contractual obligation.

The petitioners did not enter into the standard agreement provided for by section 1 of the Federal Control Act, but by acceptance of the benefits of section 2 thereof they brought themselves within the entire provisions of the act; consequently, their properties were taken over and used by the Director General subject to the same conditions as those contained in the standard agreement so far as they provided for the return of the properties to the carriers “ in substantially as good repair and in substantially as complete equipment as it was in at the beginning.of federal control.” At the end of Federal control, the-petitioners filed claims with the Director [342]*342General setting forth numerous items due from and to the Director General. The Ann Arbor’s claim contained, among others, a claim for undermaintenanee of way and structures of $507,968, and a claim for undermaintenanee of equipment of $700 566.34, a total for under-maintenance of $1,208,534.34, and claimed a net balance due the corporation of $603,601.26. The Lake Superior’s claim contained an item for undermaintenanee of way and structures of $20,631.95, and claimed a net balance due the corporation of $69,079.98. In the final settlement agreements, the Ann Arbor acknowledged an indebtedness of $600,000 to the Director General, and the Director General acknowledged an indebtedness of $50,000 to the Lake Superior, and the account was closed by the Ann Arbor giving two notes, of a total face amount of $550,000, to the Director General.

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Related

Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. Commissioner
30 B.T.A. 194 (Board of Tax Appeals, 1934)
Ann Arbor R.R. v. Commissioner
29 B.T.A. 331 (Board of Tax Appeals, 1933)

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Bluebook (online)
29 B.T.A. 331, 1933 BTA LEXIS 958, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ann-arbor-rr-v-commissioner-bta-1933.