Busse v. United States

543 F.2d 1321, 211 Ct. Cl. 247, 192 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 74, 38 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5984, 1976 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 277
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedOctober 20, 1976
DocketNo. 224-73
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 543 F.2d 1321 (Busse 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
Busse v. United States, 543 F.2d 1321, 211 Ct. Cl. 247, 192 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 74, 38 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5984, 1976 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 277 (cc 1976).

Opinion

Dureee, Senior Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

In this tax refund action, plaintiff, an individual taxpayer, challenges the Internal Revenue Service’s [IRS or Service] determination that the imputed interest provisions of the Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. § 488) apply to the payments plaintiff received from the sale of her interest in a patent. Because of the specificity with which the Code section applies to the taxpayer, the Service must prevail on its determination.

The parties’ stipulation provides the following factual backdrop to the instant controversy. In 1962, plaintiff, as widow of Gilbert Busse, inherited Gilbert’s undivided one-half interest in a patent. Gilbert acquired his interest in the patent by a March 20,1958 assignment of an undivided half-interest in an invention developed by his brother, Curtis Busse, sometime prior to that date. With the issuance in August 1960 of a patent on the invention, a method and machine for stacking cans on pallets, Gilbert and Curtis Busse became equal co-owners of the patent. At the time of the patent issuance Gilbert and Curtis were engaged in the partnership business of manufacturing equipment for the can making and canning industries under the name of Busse Brothers Company.

In 1966, following Gilbert’s death and plaintiff’s inheritance of both Gilbert’s partnership and patent interests, plaintiff and Curtis agreed to form a Wisconsin corporation, Busse Bros. Inc., and transfer their respective partnership interests together with the operating assets of the partnership to the corporation, with plaintiff and Curtis each receiving 50 percent of the new corporation’s stock. Incident to this agreement plaintiff and Curtis agreed to transfer their respective interests in the can stacking patent to the corporation. In return, each were to receive five percent of the corporation’s net sales (as defined by the parties’ agreement) of the patented invention for the life of the patent.1

[250]*250Under this agreement the corporation paid plaintiff $31,433.40 and $36,029.01 in 1966 and 1967 respectively. ■Plaintiff reported these amounts on her income tax returns for those years as long term capital gains. Upon subsequent audit the IRS, after various returns of capital adjustments, determined that of the $36,029.01 plaintiff received in 1967, $3,017.20 of that amount was unstated interest on the payment pursuant to section 483 and properly taxable as ordinary income.

In August 1970 plaintiff and the IRS entered into an Acceptance of Overassessment for tax years 1966 and 1967 with plaintiff reserving her right to pursue claims for additional refunds. In August 1971 the IRS denied plaintiff’s March 1971 refund claim in the amount of $1,822.08. This action timely followed the IRS’s denial of plaintiff’s refund claim.

Section 483 2 of the Internal Revenue Code provides that in sales or exchanges of property where the payments are [251]*251deferred for more than one year from the date of sale, an interest element, taxable at ordinary income rates, will be imputed as part of the payment (s) if no interest is specified in the sale/exchange agreement or the stated interest is unreasonably low. '3B Mertens, Law of Federal Income Taxation §§ 22.46a, 22.46b. This general rule applies both to fixed pe: riodic deferred payments and indefinite deferred payments made more than one year after the sale date. O.I.B. v. Brown, 380 U.S. 563, 5T8 (1965). Plaintiff does not dispute that the payments she received fall within the general rule of section 483, i.e., payments due more than one year after the sale of property under a contract providing for no stated interest on the deferred payments.3 Bather, plaintiff seeks to avoid the application of section 483’s imputed interest provisions to the payments she received by contending that § 483(f) (4) exempts the payments from the general rule of the section. Subsection (f) (4) insulates transactions described in section 1235 (>a) of the Code from the imputed interest provisions of section 483 by providing that section 483 “shall not apply to any payment made pursuant to a transfer described in section 1235 (a) (relating to sale or exchange of patents).” 4

[252]*252A section 1235(a)5 transaction is one in which, a patent bolder transfers all substantial rights to a patent, or an undivided interest therein. The parties differ on whether plaintiff’s sale of her patent interest was such a transaction. The parties agree that the answer to whether section 483 applies to plaintiff comes from a determination of whether section 1235(a) describes plaintiff’s sale of her patent interest. We find it does not.

Section 1235(a) specifies the rule that certain transfers of patents made not by any taxpayer or patent transferor but “by any holder” shall be considered the sale or exchange of a capital asset held for more than six months. Thus the initial requirement to come within the transaction described in section 1235 (a) is that the patent transferor must be a “holder.” While any taxpayer can transfer a patent and be accorded the tax treatment provided under other sections of the Code, only a holder can participate in the transaction described by § 1235(a) and qualify for the section’s tax treatment. All [253]*253other taxpayers must look to and be aware of other Code sections for the tax treatment of their patent transfers. Treas. Eeg. § 1.1235-1 (b).6

Section 1235(b) defines a “holder” as an individual (1) who either created the invention covered by the patent or (2) who purchased an interest in the invention prior to its actual reduction to practice. Plaintiff admits that she does not fall within either of these definitions of holder. This admission of itself defeats plaintiff’s claim as it has previously been observed by at least two courts that patent transferors other than holders as defined in section 1235 (b) cannot participate in a transfer described in section 1235(a). Burde v. C.I.R., 352 F. 2d 995 (2d Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 966 (1966); Busse v. C.I.R., 479 F. 2d 1147 (7th Cir. 1973). In Busse the Seventh Circuit affirmed a Tax Court decision7 that plaintiff’s brother-in-law, Curtis, was entitled under sections 483 and 1235 to treat the payments he received from the corporation for the simultaneous sale with plaintiff of -his interest in the can stacking patent solely as capital gain. In that decision the court noted that the corporation, which like plaintiff received its patent rights from a holder after the invention’s actual reduction to practice, could not claim the benefit of the § 483(f) (4) exemption should it subsequently transfer the patent. Busse v. C.I.R., supra, 479 F. 2d at 1152. This view of the applicability of the (f) (4) exemption to only “holders” as defined in section 1235 (b) affirms the Tax Court’s position that section 483(f) (4) “exempts from the operation of the imputed-interest provisions all capital-gain-producing transfers of patents by the favored group of individuals (holders).” Busse v. C.I.R., 58 T.C. 389, 396-97 (1972).

In Burde

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543 F.2d 1321, 211 Ct. Cl. 247, 192 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 74, 38 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5984, 1976 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 277, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/busse-v-united-states-cc-1976.