Brooks v. United States

6 F. Supp. 844, 79 Ct. Cl. 470
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedMay 7, 1934
DocketNo. 42594
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 6 F. Supp. 844 (Brooks v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brooks v. United States, 6 F. Supp. 844, 79 Ct. Cl. 470 (cc 1934).

Opinion

WILLIAMS, Judge.

The material facts admitted by tbe demurrer are:

•' Tbe plaintiff duly filed income tax returns for tbe years 1927, 1928-, and 1929, and paid tbe taxes shown due thereon. Included in gross income on the returns for these years were the respective amounts of $33,254.58, $37,100, and $37,310.41, which were received by plaintiff from a trust created by the will of his grandmother, Emma Louisa Higgins. The trust provision is as follows:

“Sixth: I give and‘bequeath to my executors the sum of two hundred thousand dollars-in money, or in securities, to be selected and-taken 'from my estate, at their market price, in trust, nevertheless, to invest and keep the same invested and to collect and receive the interest, income, dividends, and profits thereof and apply the same to the use of my grandson Reginald Brooks during his natural life, and npon his death to assign, transfer, and set over said principal sum to his children him surviving. * * * ”

The trust thus created is still in effect, its fair market value as of March 1, 1913, being . not less than $482,599.37. On March 1,1913, plaintiff was 41 years of age, and had a life expectancy of 23.511 years. The value on that date of his right to receive income from the trust was not less than $286,876.68.

The total income payments received by plaintiff from the trust, from March 1, 1913-, to December 3-1,1929, amount to $498,091.20.

The plaintiff duly filed claims for refund of taxes paid for the years 1927, 1928, and 1929, upon the grounds -that $12,201.81 of the amount received from the trust fund for each of those years represented a return of capital and was therefore not taxable income. Tbe refund claim for tbe. year 1927 sought a refund of $2,128.05', the claim for the year 1928 sought a refund of $1,067.05, and the claim for the year 1929 sought a refund of $2,133.67. These claims were rejected by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.

The question raised by the demurrer is: Were the payments received by plaintiff from the trust funds income in their entirety or did a portion of such payments represent a return of capital?

The challenged taxes were collected under the Revenue Acts of 1926 and 1928. Section 213 (b) (3) of tbe Revenue Act of 1926, 26 USCA § 954 (b) (3), and section 23 (b) (3> of tbe Revenue Act of 1928,- 26 USCA § 2022 (b) (3) in identical language provide that tbe value of property acquired by gift, bequest, devise, or inheritance -shall not be included in gross income and shall be exempt from taxation but that the income from such property shall be included in gross income. This provision in substance has been carried in every Revenue Act since the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment. The courts have uniformly held that the entire income received by a beneficiary ‘of a trust for a term of years or for life with remainder over, as in this ease, constitutes taxable income, without any deductions by way of return of capital, exhaustion, or depreciation, and this is true without regard to whether tbe trust was created prior or subsequent to March 1,1913. Irwin v. Gavit, 268 U. S. 161, 45 S. Ct. 475, 476, 69 L. Ed. 897; Drexel v. United States, 61 Ct. Cl. 216; W. R. Verner, Ex’r, v. United States, 62 Ct. Cl. 574; Codman v. Miles (C. C. A.) 28 F.(2d) 823, 824; Heiner, Collector, v. Beatty (C. C. A.) 17 F.(2d) 743, affirmed by Supreme Court in a per curiam decision, March 5, 1928, 278 U. S. 598, 48 S. Ct. 319, 72 L. Ed. 723; Helvering v. Butterworth, 290 U. S. 365, 54 S. Ct. 221, 222, 78 L. Ed. -. The Board of Tax Appeals has likewise held such income taxable in its en[845]*845tirety. Appeal of Sophia Gr. Cose, 5 B. T. A. 260; George D. Widener v. Com’r, 8 B. T. A. «651.

In all these cases the direct subjeet-matter in suit was the taxability of income received by beneficiaries from testamentary trusts. In Irwin v. Gavit, supra, where the trust was created subsequent to March 1, 1913, the court said:

“The language quoted leaves no doubt in our minds that if a fund were given to trustees for A for life with remainder over, the income received by the trustees and paid over to A would be income of A under the statute. * * ~ Apart from technicalities we can perceive no distinction relevant to the question before us between a gift of the fund for life and a gift of the income from it.”

In Codman v. Miles, supra, where the trust was created prior to March 1,1913, the court said:

“It is true that in a sense the income conveyed to the plaintiff for life is properly designated as property, but it clearly retains its character as taxable income, and there is no provision in the law, nor any terms employed in the statute, to indicate an intention upon the part of Congress to relieve such income from the normal tax levied upon incomes merely because its payment ceased after a term of years. * * * What the plaintiff received and was entitled to receive was not the corpus of the property but the increment annually accruing therefrom. It is nowhere suggested that the corpus of the property, from which the income was derived, was in any way depleted.”

In Irwin v. Gavit recovery was sought on the ground that the income from the trust Was a legacy or bequest and as such was not subject to the tax. In Codman v. Miles recovery was sought on the ground that because the income ceased on the death of the beneficiary she was entitled to have a- deduction of the tax because of exhaustion. While the contention made here that part of the payments received represented a return of capital was not made in these cases, the broad question as to whether the payments were taxable as income was carefully considered in each ease, and the reasoning in the opinions and the logical inferences to be drawn therefrom justify the conclusion that the decisions would not have been different had that contention been made.

In George D. Widener v. Com’r, supra, the Board of Tax Appeals held that no part of the payments received from a trust, simi: lar in every respect to that of the instant case, represented a return of capital. The trust was created subsequent to Mareh 1, 1913. The Board said:

“The petitioners argue that, irrespective of the statutory exemption of bequests, the full amount of distributions is not income because out of such distributions they are entitled to recover, as capital, the value of the right to receive them. This is the theory — - that because the right had a value which would serve to measure a legacy tax it was capital of .petitioners thenceforth, that it is thereafter being diminished, that the diminution is in some way brought about by the distributions of income, that such distributions are the only means to offset the diminution, and hence to the extent of such offset the distributions are a ‘return of capital.’ We may pass the question whether in the true sense this ‘right to receive income’ is capital— whether the capital, if any, is not represented only by the interest in the fund which produces the income — whether it is not subversive of the entire concept of income to say in turn that a gratuitous right to receive it is capital and hence the realization upon that right is recovery of capital. * * * But suppose it is capital, wherein is it impaired or diminished ? It persists in full force. It begins at death as a right to receive income from, and thus an interest in, the fund, and continues throughout in as great a measure as it began.

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6 F. Supp. 844, 79 Ct. Cl. 470, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brooks-v-united-states-cc-1934.