Bigelow v. Bowers

68 F.2d 839, 4 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) 1230, 13 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 605, 1934 U.S. App. LEXIS 4998
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedFebruary 5, 1934
Docket165
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 68 F.2d 839 (Bigelow v. Bowers) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bigelow v. Bowers, 68 F.2d 839, 4 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) 1230, 13 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 605, 1934 U.S. App. LEXIS 4998 (2d Cir. 1934).

Opinions

CHASE, Circuit Judge.

In 1916, the plaintiff owned thirty shares of the capital stock of a New Jersey corporation. He had paid $1,875 for them. While section 2 (a) of the Revenue Act of 1916 (39 [840]*840Stat. 756, 757) was in effect, the corporation declared a stock dividend of 2,00 per cent, and transferred in cash to capital account from surplus earned since February 28, 1913, the par value of the dividend shares. The plaintiff received sixty shares as a dividend on his stock. He reported such dividend as taxable income in the amount of 16,00o for that year in accordance with the statute above mentioned and regulations thereunder and paid the tax.

In 1918, the plaintiff sold his ninety shares of stock for $5,625. He reported in his return for that year a loss on the sale computed by adding the original cost of the thirty shares, $1,875, to the par value of the dividend shares, $6,000, and subtracting the sale price, $5,625, from the total. In so doing he complied with sections 201 (a) and (e) of the Revenue Act of 1918 and T. D. 45-, Art. 1546.

On March 8,1920, the decision in the case of Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U. S. 189, 40 S. Ct. 189, 64 L. Ed. 521, 9 A. L. R. 1570, was handed down. It was then known that stock dividends were not taxable income, but it was not until the passage of the Revenue Act of 1921 (42 Stat. 227), that the provisions of the 1918 act taxing them as such were repealed. In the meantime, after the decision in Eisner v. Maeomber, supra, the regulations of the Treasury Department relative to the taxation of such dividends as income were revoked, and article 1547 of Reg. 45 was amended to read as follows:

.“Art. 1547. Sale of sioch received as dividend. — Stock received as a dividend does not constitute taxable income to the stockholder, but any profit derived by the stockholder from the sale of such stock is taxable income to him. For the purpose of ascertaining the gain or loss derived from the sale of such stock, or from the sale of the stock with respect to which it is issued, the cost * * * of both the old and new shares is tó be determined in accordance with the following rules:
“(1) Where the stock issued as a dividend is all of substantially the same character or preference as the stock upon which the stock dividend is paid, the cost of each share of both the old and new stock will be the quotient of the cost, * * * of the old shares of stock divided by the total number of the old and new shares.”

The appellant never filed any claim for refund of the tax paid by him on the dividend shares he received in 1916. In 1923, however, the tax due on his return for 1918 was redetermined in accordance with the regulations above quoted; the loss on the sale of the stock shown by the appellant in his return was disallowed and a deficiency assessed on the basis of a profit of $3,750, which increased the appellant’s taxable income by that amount. The appellant,'after unsuccessful attempts to have the deficiency redetermined in his favor, paid the additional tax of $2,151.17 under protest and brought this suit to recover it.

The basis of his claim is that, since Congress intended to tax stock dividends as income when the Revenue Act of 1918 was passed and should not be presumed, in the absence of a clear expression to that effect, to have intended double taxation, United States v. Supplec-Biddle Hardware Co., 265 U. S. 189, 44 S. Ct. 546, 68 L. Ed. 970, it did not intend to tax the entire sale price of dividend stock when sold as a gain derived from the sale; and, further that the intent of Congress must be determined in the light of existing conditions when the statute was passed and before the decision in Eisner v. Macomber, supra.

The pertinent portions of the Revenue Act of 1918 are (Revenue Act of 1918 [40 Stat. 1057, 1059, 1060,1065]):

“Sec. 213. That for the purposes of tins title (except as otherwise provided in section 233) the term ‘gross income’—
“(a) Includes gains, profits, and income derived from salaries, wages, or compensation for personal service (including in the ease of the President of the-United States, the judges of the Supreme and inferior courts of the United States, and all other officers and employees, whether elected or appointed, of the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, or any political subdivision thereof, or the District of Columbia, the compensation received as such), of whatever kind and in whatever form paid, or-from professions, vocations, trades, businesses, commerce, or sales, or dealings in property, whether real or personal, growing out of the ownership or use of or interest in such property; also from interest, rent, dividends, securities, or the transaction of any business carried on for gain or profit, or gains or profits and income derived from any source whatever. * * *
“See. 201. (a) That the term ‘dividend’ when used in this title (except in paragraph [10] of subdivision [a] of section 234) means (1) any distribution made by a corporation, other than a personal service corporation, to its shareholders or members, whether in cash or in other property or in stock of the corporation, out of its earnings or profits accumulated since February 28,1913. * * *
[841]*841“(e) A dividend paid in stoek of the corporation shall be considered income to the amount of the earnings or profits distributed. Amounts distributed in the liquidation of a corporation shall he treated as payments in exchange for stock or shares, and any gain or profit realized thereby shall be taxed to the distributee as other gains or profits. * * *
“See. 202. (a) That for the purpose of ascertaining the gain derived or loss sustained from the sale ox other disposition of property, real, personal, or mixed, the basis shall be—
“(1) In the ease of property acquired before March 1, 1913; * *' *
“(2) In the case of property acquired on or after that date, the cost thereof; or the inventory value, if the inventory is made in accordance with section 203.”

That the appellant is right in saying that Congress intended to tax stock dividends as income when the above statute was passed is obvious. We agree with him also that what Congress intended to tax when the 1918' act was passed was not changed by the subsequent decision of the Supreme Court. That decision merely went to the power of Congress to tax stoek dividends as income. In carrying out its general purpose to include all income in gross income for the purpose of determining taxable income, Heiner v. Colonial Trust Co., 275 U. S. 232, 48 S. Ct. 65, 72 L. Ed. 256, „it enacted section 201 (a), (c) of the 1918 act. It exceeded its power, not in taxing income, but in including, as a part of the basis for the computation of the income tax, stoek dividends which the Supreme Court later held were not income and so not taxable as such.

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Bigelow v. Bowers
68 F.2d 839 (Second Circuit, 1934)

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68 F.2d 839, 4 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) 1230, 13 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 605, 1934 U.S. App. LEXIS 4998, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bigelow-v-bowers-ca2-1934.