Arc Realty Co. v. Commissioner

295 F.2d 98
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedOctober 17, 1961
DocketNos. 16722, 16725; 16723, 16726; 16724, 16727
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 295 F.2d 98 (Arc Realty Co. v. Commissioner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Arc Realty Co. v. Commissioner, 295 F.2d 98 (8th Cir. 1961).

Opinion

MATTHES, Circuit Judge.

These cases, consolidated for trial in the Tax Court and here, involve three personal holding companies, Arc Realty-Company, Arcadia Realty Company, and Lydiade Investment Trust, all Missouri corporations, and are before us on petitions for review of the decisions of the Tax Court, Substantial deficiencies in income tax and personal holding company surtax for the years 1951 through 1954 were assessed by the Commissioner and sustained by the Tax Court, as shown by findings of fact and opinion reported at 34 T.C. 484.

Four issues are presented for determination: (1) whether the Tax Court correctly sustained the determination that for purpose of ascertaining gain on certain stock the basis therefor was $20 per share; (2) whether the petitioners are entitled to deduct under § 505(a) (1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, 26 U.S.C.A. § 505(a) (1), in computation of the personal holding company Subchapter A net income for taxable years 1951,1952 and 1953, federal income taxes paid during the years which had accrued and been deducted in prior years; (3) whether the Tax Court correctly sustained the Commissioner’s computation of the tax of petitioner Arc Realty Company for 1953; (4) whether the Tax Court should have permitted petitioners to offer additional evidence concerning unused dividends paid credit carryovers.

Issue 1.

With the exception of two witnesses who testified as experts, the facts were stipulated and so found by the Tax Court. Inasmuch as the parties are familiar with the factual background, which appears for others interested in 34 T.C. 484, we shall not here indulge in full repetition of the details. In summary, it was established that on June 21, 1932, petitioners held 5% gold notes of American Press, the owner of a St. Louis, Missouri newspaper, with total face values as follows: Arc $180,000; Arcadia $125,000; and Lydiade $100,000; and on June 24, 1932, surrendered the notes and received in exchange interim certificates for shares of 4% second preferred stock of Star-Chronicle Publishing Company as follows: Arc 630 shares, Arcadia 437% shares, and Lydiade 350 shares. Between 1932 and 1934, G. A. Buder, an officer and principal shareholder in Arc, Arcadia, and Lydiade, transferred interim certificates for 1,104 shares of the 4% second preferred stock of Star to Lydiade as a contribution to capital. Eight hundred fifty of these shares were a part of the 875 shares which he acquired on June 24, 1932, in exchange for American Press 5% gold notes having a face value of $175,000. On July 2, 1934, Star issued stock certificates for 4% second preferred stock to petitioners in amounts equal to the interim certificates held by each.1

During the year 1951, and pursuant to redemption call for shares of the 4% second preferred stock of Star, each of the petitioners received $100 per share for the following amounts of such stock held by them:

No. of Amount
Shares Received
Arc ............. 630 $63,000
Arcadia ......... 437% 43,750
Lydiade .........1473 147,3002

In their income tax returns for 1951, filed on cash basis, petitioners reported the basis of the 4% second preferred stock to be $100 a share, and that, therefore, no gain or loss was realized. In due time the Commissioner made the deter[101]*101mination which provoked this litigation, that is, that 2,521% shares of the 2,540% shares possessed a fair market value on the date acquired by petitioners of $20 a share; and that the basis for the 19 shares purchased by Lydiade in 1935 and 1936 was the cost thereof, or $35.79 per share. This determination is not in dispute.

Petitioners press the contention that when the interim certificates were acquired by them and for which they received certificates for 2,521% shares of the second preferred stock, the interim certificates had no fair market value and that their cost basis must be determined by resort to one of two suggested methods : (A) using the value of the consideration given for the stock; (B) considering the amount of the debt discharged by receipt of stock.

Realistically, what petitioners contend for in both (A) and (B) is that, irrespective of the cost, if any, to them of the surrendered notes, the face amount thereof controls for the purpose of resolving the instant question.3 We find no support in legal authority or in logic for this argument. It has been held, and properly so, that the face amount of the surrendered notes does not establish prima facie the cost thereof to petitioners. Skinner et al. v. Eaton, D.C.Conn., 34 F.2d 576, affirmed 2 Cir., 44 F.2d 1020. Where there is no proof as to the cost of notes or other assets surrendered for stock which is the subject of capital gains treatment, the rule contended for could conceivably produce manifest unfairness and unjust result.

Section 111, Internal Revenue Code of 1939, 26 U.S.C.A. § 111, provides that “(t)he gain from the sale or other disposition of property shall be the excess of the amount realized therefrom over the adjusted basis provided in section 113(b) for determining gain * * Section 113(b) of the Code, 26 U.S.C.A. § 113(b), which deals with the adjusted basis for determining gain and the manner in which such gain shall be determined does not expressly or impliedly authorize a taxpayer to ascertain capital gains by using the face amount of surrendered notes as the cost basis to him for the property received in exchange therefor. In such a situation if the stock forming the basis for the capital gains treatment had an ascertainable fair market value when acquired in satisfaction of the indebtedness represented by the notes surrendered, the taxpayer is deemed to have collected the debt evidenced by the face amount of the surrendered notes only to the extent of the fair market value of the stock received by the taxpayer, and the basis of such stock to him thereafter is the fair market value when initially received. See Society Brand Clothes, Inc. v. Commissioner, 18 T.C. 304. In this setting, the crucial questions are: (1) did the Star preferred stock surrendered in 1951 have a fair market value so as to afford a cost basis; (2) if so, was the determination of $20 per share correct? Since these are basically factual questions, we resort to firmly established legal principles. For tax-liability purposes, determinations of fact by the Commissioner, whether express or necessarily implied, are presumptively correct, and the taxpayer has the burden of overcoming the determinations before the Tax Court. Gunn v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 8 Cir., 247 F.2d 359; Crown Iron Works Co. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 8 Cir., 245 F.2d 357; Paster v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 8 Cir., 245 F.2d 381, certiorari denied 355 U.S. 876, 78 S.Ct. 139, 2 L.Ed. 2d 107; Weiss v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 8 Cir., 221 F.2d 152; Heiner v. Gwinner, 3 Cir., 114 F.2d 723, certiorari denied Gwinner v. Heiner, 311 U.S. 714, 61 S.Ct. 396, 85 L.Ed. 465.

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