City Auto Stamping Co. v. Commissioner

7 T.C. 354, 1946 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 130
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedJuly 11, 1946
DocketDocket No. 5783
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 7 T.C. 354 (City Auto Stamping Co. v. Commissioner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Tax Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City Auto Stamping Co. v. Commissioner, 7 T.C. 354, 1946 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 130 (tax 1946).

Opinion

OPINION.

Disnet, Judge:

There is, as the respondent on brief states, no dispute about the essential facts presented to us here. The only issue is whether the respondent erred in disallowing as an abnormality, under the provisions of section 711 (b) (1) (H) of the Internal Revenue Code (providing for computation of excess profits tax income by disregarding certain deductions earlier taken), the above described deductions taken by the petitioner in 1937, a base period year. In that year the petitioner paid out, and deducted on its income tax returns, $48,-023.99 in settlement of the Dole Valve Co. suit and $22,560.42 upon two consolidated stockholders’ suits. Petitioner’s disallowance of these deductions, for the purpose of computing excess profits tax for 1941, was disallowed by the Commissioner.

It is the petitioner’s position, in substance, that the payments were abnormal for it and, therefore, fall squarely under the language of section 711 (b) (1) (H), Internal Revenue Code,1 providing for dis-allowance, in computation of excess profits tax, of deductions taken in the base period and attributable to “any claim * * * judgment or interest on any of the foregoing” if abnormal for the taxpayer; while the respondent, though admitting the applicability of subsection (b) (1) (H), relies upon its further language to the effect that if the deductions were normal for the taxpayer, only the excess over 125 per cent of the average amount of such deductions in the base period years may be disallowed; and he contends first that the deductions here were normal. Since the amounts deducted in 1937 were less than the “average of such deductions” in the four previous years, he therefore allows no disallowance of the deductions. The fact that the deductions in 1937 were less than the four-year average is not disputed by the petitioner, and arises from the fact that in 1933 the petitioner expended $299,529.33 in payment of a judgment in favor of the State Superintendent of Banking. The petitioner contends, however, that the fact that the four-year average of claims or judgments exceeds the amounts deducted in 1937 is immaterial, for that provision applies only if such deductions are normal, to which the respondent answers that Regulations 109, as amended, section 30.711 (b)-2, provides that:

A class of deductions is abnormal only if the taxpayer had no deductions of that class in the taxable years prescribed for determining average deductions.

and that since in 1933 the petitioner paid the $299,529.33 on another judgment, a deduction of the same class as those in 1937, the latter are under the regulation not abnormal. To this the petitioner proffers the challenge that the part of the regulation relied on is invalid, as an attempt to read into the statute something not placed there by Congress, unreasonable, arbitrary, inconsistent with the statute, and invalid as applied to it.

The gist of this matter is that the petitioner had another deduction, in a previous year, of the same nature or class as those in 1937 here in issue, and that the respondent, under the regulation, contends that such fact renders those in 1937 normal, while the petitioner urges that to a manufacturing corporation payment of such judgment or claims is in its nature abnormal, and that a regulation can not validly cause it to be considered otherwise.

We agree with the petitioner on this point. It is a manufacturing corporation, plainly not one where claims, litigation, and judgments might be considered usual incidents to its business. See W. H. Loomis Talc Corporation, 3 T. C. 1067; Consolidated Motor Lines, Inc., 6 T. C. 1066. We consider this so self-evident as to obviate further comment, and that the only question is whether the regulation, in effect denying abnormality of deduction unless there is none of that class in the period used to secure an average, is valid as applied in this case. We do not think it is. The statute gives the petitioner the benefit of the 1937 deductions “if abnormal for the taxpayer.” The words “for the taxpayer” are to us highly significant. They call for an examination of the facts as to each particular petitioner. The deduction might not be abnormal for some other petitioner. It might not conform to some generality (such as the regulation). But if abnormal for the petitioner here, it may not be viewed otherwise. Moreover, logic forbids a conclusion that the fact that there are two abnormalities causes both to become normal. They may become so in a sense by comparison with each other, but may be still very abnormal by comparison with the business experience of petitioner. The statute not only does not limit the inquiry to the four-year period, but noticeably does not state that a deduction must be the only one of its class in order to be abnormal. Definition of “abnormal” is “not conformed to rule or system; deviating from the type; anomalous; irregular” — Webster's New International Dictionary. Two deviations from type do not cause normality in both. The Report of the Senate Committee on Finance on the Second Revenue Act of 1940, on this subject, says “an additional adjustment is provided * * * to the effect that deduction attributable to any claim, award, judgment, or decrpe * * * will not be required to be taken into account if, in the light of the taxpayer’s business, it is abnormal for the taxpayer to incur a liability of such character * * *.” The same language is fouiiji in the Conference Committee Report (see pp. 537 and 551, C. B. 1940-2) and in the earlier statute, as more particularly noted below. The committee reports do not explain the change in language, from which it appears that no such change in meaning was made as to call for explanation. We therefore regard “if abnormal for the taxpayer” in subsection (H) as equivalent to “if in the light of taxpayer’s business it was abnormal fete.].” So viewed, the language does not permit the limitation contained in the regulation.

The regulation above referred to attempts to classify deductions as to abnormality. Section 711 (b) (1) (H) contains no language as to a “class” of deductions, but, as above seen, merely provides for dis-allowance of deductions abnormal for the taxpayer. Therefore, the regulation appears not well based upon or applicable to section 711 (b) (1) (H), however well based it might be on subsection (J), which does cover class of deductions. “Where a payment falls within a particular provision of the law, the payment may not be claimed under another and, possibly, broader provision.” W. H. Loomis Talc Corporation, supra. So a regulation, even though properly based on subsection (J), does not necessarily have proper basis in subsection (H).2 Subparagraph (J) was inserted in the law in 1941, though subsection (H), above considered, appeared as subsection (G) in the Second Revenue Act of 1940. There the expression was “if in the light of the taxpayer’s business it was abnormal for the taxpayer to incur a liability of such character,” instead of merely “if abnormal for the taxpayer,” as in the 1941 amendment. The regulation here discussed did not appear until 1941, when, “to conform to the Excess Profits Tax Amendments of 1941,” it was added by T. D. 5045 (C. B. 1941-1, p. 69, 73).

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City Auto Stamping Co. v. Commissioner
7 T.C. 354 (U.S. Tax Court, 1946)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
7 T.C. 354, 1946 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 130, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-auto-stamping-co-v-commissioner-tax-1946.