Coast Coil Co. v. Commissioner

50 T.C. 528, 1968 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 105
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedJune 27, 1968
DocketDocket No. 3431-65
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 50 T.C. 528 (Coast Coil 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
Coast Coil Co. v. Commissioner, 50 T.C. 528, 1968 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 105 (tax 1968).

Opinion

Hoyt, Judge:

Respondent determined a deficiency in petitioner’s income tax for the period July 1, 1960, to June 30, 1961, after dis-allowance of certain depreciation deductions claimed. Petitioner, however, while reexamining its return for that year, discovered its failure to take a deduction for a loss resulting from sale of its accounts receivable at less than book value. By its petition filed herein error is assigned to respondent’s failure to allow the loss from this sale. The sale occurred while petitioner was liquidating pursuant to section 337.1 By stipulation respondent concedes that petitioner is entitled to the depreciation expense deduction claimed and disallowed.

The two issues which remain to be decided are:

(1) Did petitioner in fact suffer a loss by the sale of its accounts receivable; and

(2) Does the sale of accounts receivable fall within the nonrecognition-of-loss provisions of section 337 ?

FINDINGS OF FACT

Those facts which were stipulated are found accordingly, and incorporated herein by this reference.

Petitioner, Coast Coil Co. (now dissolved), was a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of California, with its principal place of business located in Los Angeles, Calif. Petitioner’s final income tax return for the period here involved was timely filed with the district director of internal revenue at Los Angeles, Calif. Petitioner regularly kept its records and filed its Federal income tax returns on the accrual method of accounting.

Petitioner was incorporated in 1954, and since that time had been engaged in the manufacture, distribution, and sale of electric and electronic equipment. Some of its sales were on open account and were reflected on its books and tax returns as accounts receivable. Petitioner did not maintain a reserve for bad debts but instead used the specific chargeoff method of reporting bad debts for Federal tax purposes. As an accrual basis taxpayer, petitioner had included the full face value of the receivables in its gross income for Federal tax purposes.

On April 25,1961, petitioner adopted a plan of complete liquidation pursuant to section '337. Less than a year later, by March 15, 1962, most of petitioner’s assets had been distributed to its shareholders in complete liquidation. Petitioner was dissolved pursuant to the laws of the State of California on April 25,1962.

During the last week of April 1961, preliminary negotiations began for the sale of Coast Coil. Petitioner’s president, A. K. Frederick, and McKay Manning, Inc.’s president, Howie Saltzman, initially agreed on a purchase price of $575,000. That amount was determined through appraisal of the fixed assets, an examination of the books, and further negotiations. The initial agreement contemplated alternative forms of final settlement. McKay Manning would either buy the stock at the agreed price, or instead elect to purchase from Coast Coil all its assets except cash, certain securities, and an automobile. The latter method was elected, and on June 29,1961, the agreed-upon assets were sold to McKay Manning for a total adjusted consideration of $386,758.88.

When the buyer elected to purchase assets rather than stock, the value of the assets to be retained by petitioner was deducted from $575,000 to reach the new purchase price. Each item sold had previously been valued separately, some according to an appraisal by the buyer, others at book value, and others through negotiations. The bill of sale noted the allocations of the total consideration because both buyer and seller felt such an itemization to be desirable. Although the book and face value of the accounts receivable was $41,003.80, ’and petitioner’s basis for tax purposes therein was the same, only $25,000 of the total consideration had been allocated thereto. Such allocation resulted from arm’s-length negotiations between the parties and their representatives.

On June 20,1961, the parties first decided to value the accounts receivable at their actual rather than face value. The buyer agreed to an actual value at first because he recognized that some of the debts might be hard to collect. A few days later, however, the buyer decided that he wanted the accounts receivable value at the “amount actually due,” instead of an actual current value.

Further negotiations in that area brought to light new aspects concerning the accounts receivable. Frederick was leaving the business, and many of the accounts would thereafter become difficult to collect. He had been the strong man of the business theretofore who had effected collection of accounts. It was apparent that there might well be expenses incurred in enforcing collection. Coast Coil also wanted to sell the accounts receivable at their actual value to avoid assertion by the buyer of potential offsets against the promissory notes which were to be part of the purchase price. Coast Coil therefore negotiated for a valuation equal to the collectible value in order to prevent the buyer from later claiming any offsets. It had been advised by counsel that the sale of corporate assets was a nontaxable transaction under section 337 and that the allocation of consideration in the bill of sale to be executed would have no effect on petitioner’s tax liability. There was therefore no “tax savings motive” present to influence the fixing of value. Another factor taken into account was that the sale of the accounts receivable would be “without recourse.”

After all points were considered and a series of negotiations and discussions had taken place, a realistic value of the outstanding balance of the accounts, roughly 60 percent, rounded to the nearest dollar amount, was assigned to the accounts receivable by the parties to the transaction. This consideration, $25,000, was stated in the bill of sale dated June 29, 1961, for petitioner’s accounts receivable “(without warranty or responsibility on the part of Seller as to collection).”

The accounts receivable which were sold consisted of 41 separate accounts ranging from over $6,500 to less than $10. The record does not disclose how accurate the judgment of the parties was as to the value assigned but at least one of the accounts with an original balance of $2,262 remained uncollected for many years, and at time of trial litigation was pending to enforce collection. The accounts were subsequently sold by McKay Manning to another corporation in 1962.

Petitioner’s income tax return for the period ended June 30, 1961, reported a nontaxable gain on the sale of assets during liquidation. Included in the assets sold were accounts receivable of $41,003.80. During the audit of this return by the Internal Revenue Service, petitioner’s counsel for the first time urged that a loss on the sale of these accounts was allowable under section 337. The claimed deduction was denied in the 10-day letter with the following explanation:

The taxpayer has raised an issue relative to an allowance >of a loss on accounts receivable sold as a part of all the corporate assets. Inasmuch as such property does not fall within the exceptions of Section 387(b) of the internal revenue code, no loss is allowable.
Per books (accounts receivable)-$41, 003. 80
Allocable sales price_ 25,000.

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Coast Coil Co. v. Commissioner
50 T.C. 528 (U.S. Tax Court, 1968)

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Bluebook (online)
50 T.C. 528, 1968 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 105, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/coast-coil-co-v-commissioner-tax-1968.