Bankers Guarantee Title & Trust Co. v. United States

290 F. Supp. 522, 22 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5334, 1968 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11930
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Ohio
DecidedJuly 29, 1968
DocketCiv. A. No. C 66-376
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 290 F. Supp. 522 (Bankers Guarantee Title & Trust Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bankers Guarantee Title & Trust Co. v. United States, 290 F. Supp. 522, 22 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5334, 1968 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11930 (N.D. Ohio 1968).

Opinion

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

KALBFLEISCH, Chief Judge.

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. Plaintiff, Bankers Guarantee Title & Trust Company (hereinafter called Bankers), is an Ohio corporation having its principal place of business in Akron, Ohio. The defendant is the United States of America.

2. Bankers is engaged in the mortgage banking business in the Akron area, serving as a mortgage outlet for [523]*523various lenders or investors having large sums of money to invest in fixed-income securities such as mortgages. Bankers, as is common to a mortgage banker, receives annual commitments from an investor as to the type and amount of mortgages the investor may desire to purchase. After Bankers has obtained a number of the desired mortgages— usually from commercial builders or individual homeowners — it then sells them as a package to the investor. For its services Bankers may receive a discount fee from an investor and an origination fee from a borrower for the generation of the mortgage loan. In addition, since most institutional investors do not maintain facilities for servicing mortgages in the local areas in which they invest, Bankers receives a fee for servicing the mortgages. The fee usually ranges from % to % of 1% annually of the outstanding unpaid principal balance of the mortgage portfolio. Servicing of the mortgages involves collection of payments made by the borrower, inspection, and payment of insurance and taxes.

3. In the course of servicing mortgage loans, Bankers often receives prepayments of taxes and insurance from a borrower, which prepayments are placed in escrow accounts in a local bank. Bankers endeavors to maintain a sizeable escrow account, since a large escrow account balance enhances its credit allowance.

4. Herberich - Hall - Harter Company (hereinafter called Herberich) is the parent corporation of Bankers. In 1911 Herberich owned 25% of Bankers’ stock and by 1948 had increased its holdings to 80%. Herberich operates title guarantee insurance, real estate brokerage, and casualty insurance businesses which function in an interrelated manner with the operations of Bankers.

5. Since 1911, Bankers had represented the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (hereinafter called Metropolitan) for the placement of mortgage investments in the Akron area. Bankers and Metropolitan entered into a written agreement in 1945 authorizing Bankers to originate mortgage loans in the Akron area for Metropolitan (Joint Exhibit 1). The 1945 agreement authorized Bankers to service loans for Metropolitan, but it did not require Metropolitan to buy any particular loan, nor did it assure Bankers of the right to service any loan it sold to Metropolitan. The agreement expressly stated that it could be cancelled at will by either party. Over the years, most of the loans generated by Bankers were sold to Metropolitan. In 1963 Bankers was dealing with some forty investors; however, more than 50% of the loans serviced by Bankers were loans owned by Metropolitan.

6. The Kissell Company (hereinafter called Kissell) has been in the mortgage banking business since 1937. It currently acts as a mortgage banking representative for Metropolitan in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Lima, Toledo, Indianapolis, Lexington, Louisville, Pittsburgh, and other cities. Although Kissell deals with other investors, since 1962 it has originated and serviced more Metropolitan loans than any other mortgage banker in Ohio.

7. In 1962 Kissell and Bankers commenced negotiations for the sale to Kissell of the Metropolitan mortgage portfolio then being serviced by Bankers. Ultimately, in March of 1963, these negotiations between Kissell and Bankers resulted in the purchase by Kissell of Bankers’ Metropolitan mortgage portfolio for a net sale price of $497,000.00. The total sale price was $502,000.00, with $2,000.00 representing certain tangible property (office equipment, etc.) and $3,000.00 representing an expense of sale. For this purchase price, Bankers sold:

“All of Bankers’ right, title and interest in its business of servicing mortgages for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, including (without limitation) its contract of appointment as Metropolitan’s mortgage loan correspondent and servicing agent, which is the subject of a separate assignment.” (Joint Exhibit 6.)

[524]*5248. The total face value of 4,952 mortgages contained in Bankers’ Metropolitan portfolio at the time of the sale was $48,391,994.31 (Joint Exhibit 19). Metropolitan consented to the sale and, as part of the sale, the contract between Metropolitan and Bankers was assigned to Kissell (Joint Exhibit 14).

9. The contract of sale between Kissell and Bankers for the Metropolitan portfolio (Joint Exhibit 3) provided that “In order to facilitate the transfer of the business being sold” one David Cook, who was then Executive Vice President of Bankers and who was “primarily responsible for the conduct of the business being sold, will enter the employ of Kissell, as of the closing date.” The contract also provided that Kissell was to be given the opportunity to contact other Bankers employees concerning “employment with Kissell after closing.”

10. Subsequent to its purchase of the Metropolitan portfolio, Kissell opened a branch in Akron wherein it generates and services loans for Metropolitan.

11. Although its volume was substantially reduced by the sale of the Metropolitan portfolio, Bankers continued to originate and service other mortgage loans in the Akron area.

12. Bankers timely filed with the District Director of Internal Revenue its income tax return for the calendar year 1963 and paid the tax. In its return Bankers treated as a capital gain the entire proceeds from the sale of the Metropolitan portfolio. The District Director determined that the entire amount of the sale proceeds should be taxed to Bankers as ordinary income, and on December 23, 1965 assessed additional taxes and interest against Bankers for the year 1963 in the amount of $148,-456.42. Bankers paid the assessment on January 3, 1966 and on January 19, 1966 filed a claim for a refund. The District Director disallowed the claim on May 11, 1966 by mailing to Bankers, by certified mail, a notice of disallowance.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

1. This is a suit to recover internal revenue taxes paid by the plaintiff. This Court has jurisdiction over the parties and of the subject matter, pursuant to Title 28 U.S.C., Section 1346(a) (1).

2. The issue as presented is whether the transaction wherein Bankers sold to Kissell “all of Bankers’ right, title and interest in its business of servicing mortgages for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company” constitutes the sale of a capital asset subject to a capital gains tax, as contended by Bankers, or whether Bankers was selling to Kissell only the right to receive service fees for the remaining years of the outstanding loans in the Metropolitan portfolio, thereby converting future income into present income and subjecting the sale proceeds to ordinary income tax, as contended by the Government. The Court here observes an alternative issue which is whether or not the Court should reduce the sale proceeds into fragments and allocate part of the proceeds as going to the right to receive service fees taxable as ordinary income and allocate the remainder as a sale of capital assets taxable as capital gain.

3.

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Bluebook (online)
290 F. Supp. 522, 22 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5334, 1968 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11930, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bankers-guarantee-title-trust-co-v-united-states-ohnd-1968.