Continental Products Co. v. Commissioner

20 B.T.A. 818, 1930 BTA LEXIS 2031
CourtUnited States Board of Tax Appeals
DecidedSeptember 15, 1930
DocketDocket Nos. 5057, 20050, 21842, 28733.
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 20 B.T.A. 818 (Continental Products Co. v. Commissioner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Board of Tax Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Continental Products Co. v. Commissioner, 20 B.T.A. 818, 1930 BTA LEXIS 2031 (bta 1930).

Opinion

[819]*819OPINION.

Lansdon:

These proceedings, which by order have been consolidated for hearing and decision, were instituted for a redetermination of deficiencies in income taxes for the calendar years 1918, 1919, and 1920 in the total amounts of $1,589,419.31, $871,498.62, and $24,222.88, respectively. The appeal in Docket No. 5057 is from the partial rejection of a claim in abatement covering an amount of $890,962.71 assessed for the year 1918, which was allowed to the extent of $23,317.66, and rejected as to the balance of $867,645.05. Docket No. 21842 also involves the year 1918, being an appeal from the additional deficiency asserted for that year of $721,774.26. The deficiency appealed from in Docket No. 20050, which pertains to the year 1919, represents the rejection of a claim in abatement covering $245,369.22 previously assessed against petitioner and the determination of an additional tax liability of $626,129.40. Docket No. 28733 is an appeal from a deficiency asserted for 1920 in the amount of $24,222.88. The petitioner has paid $300,000 taxes for 1918 under its tentative separate return filed March 15, 1919, which amount was made the subject of a claim for refund when later it joined in a consolidated return for that year.

Counsel for the parties have entered into and filed in the record a voluminous stipulation of facts which constitutes the only evidence offered in these proceedings and which we adopt as our findings of fact and incorporate herein by reference as a part of this report-This stipulation disposes of all questions of invested capital and income raised by the pleadings and leaves for determination by the Board the following issues:

(1) Whether the petitioner was affiliated during the taxable years with the Brazil Railway Co. and its subsidiaries;

(2) Whether the assessment or collection of taxes for each of the years is barred by the statute of limitations ,*

(3) Whether'the assessment of $245,369.22 for the year 1919 under section 274 (d) of the Revenue Act of 1924 is invalid as being in violation of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and

(4) Whether the petitioner is entitled to have its tax liability recomputed under the provisions of section 328 of the Revenue Act of 1918.

Pursuant to an order of the Board, the hearing was limited in the first instance to the issues other than special assessment as provided in subdivision (a) of Rule 62 of the Board’s rules of practice.

Since the parties have stipulated that petitioner’s net income for each of the years 1918 and 1919 was an amount less than that origi[820]*820nally determined by the respondent, the additional deficiencies asserted for the respective years of $721,774.26 and $626,129.40 are eliminated and need not be considered further with respect to any of the issues.

The petitioner is a Maine corporation organized on December 23, 1912, for the purpose of engaging in the slaughter of cattle and other domestic livestock and the marketing of its products.

The Brazil Railway Co. is a Maine corporation organized on .November 12, 1906, for the purpose of owning, developing and operating railways in the four temperate-zone states of Brazil. During the taxable years it owned or controlled substantially all the stock of the Sorocabana Railway Co., Uruguay Railway Co., Southern Brazil Lumber & Colonization Co., Brazil Development & Colonization Co., Sao Paulo Development & Colonization Co., and Brazil Land, Cattle & Packing Co., all of which were Maine corporations which it had organized as a part of its general scheme for building up traffic for the South American railroads which it operated.

The Brazil Land, Cattle & Packing Co., hereinafter - sometimes referred to as the Cattle Co., owned approximately 7,000,000 acres of grazing land in southern Matto Grosso, together with some 150,000 head of cattle thereon. In 1911 there were no modern packing plants in Brazil where cattle could be slaughtered and the meat prepared for markets in Europe and the United States. On November 8,1911, the Cattle Co. entered into a contract with architects and engineers in Chicago to provide plans and specifications for a packing plant to be located in Brazil, which would cost approximately $5,000,000. Having no person in its organization who was sufficiently experienced to superintend the construction and operation of a packing plant and develop markets for the finished products thereof, the Brazil Railway Co. and/or the Cattle C'o. sought a competent manager in the United States. Failing to find a suitable individual, and ascertaining that the Sulzberger & Sons Co., which had an established organization for wholesale marketing of meats and other packinghouse products in Europe and the United States, would manage the construction and operation of the meat-packing plant to be built in Brazil for the Cattle Co., a contract was entered into on August 15, 1912, between the Cattle Co. and G. F. Sulzberger, who was the principal figure in the Sulzberger & Sons Co., which provides in part as follows:

*******
(1) A company (hereinafter referred to as the New Company) shall be formed under the laws of one of the United States whose principal object shall be to enter into the packing house and meat business, refrigerated and fresh, and the treatment of by-products, and all industries affiliated therewith pr appurtenant thereto, in the Republic of Brazil.
[821]*821(2) The parties hereto shall subscribe to the Capital of the New Company as follows: The Cattle Company shall subscribe to 77%% and the said Sulz-berger to 22%% up to a total aggregate of £900,000 cash. The said Capital shall consist either of shares of stock subscribed for in cash at par or of shares of stock and bonds, as shall be subsequently determined by agreement between the parties. The parties shall pay their subscriptions in the proportions and amounts aforesaid, in whole or in part payments according to the financial requirements of the New Company.
* s¡s * * * * *
(8) The said Sulzberger agrees to undertake for and on behalf of the New Company the entire conduct both of its operation and of the selling of its products and any and all by-products and of any and all operations in any way incidental or appurtenant thereto and agrees to furnish to the best of his ability such men and assistants as may be necessary to ensure the proper conduct of the New Company’s businesses, and to send to Brazil, for account of and in the service of the New Company, such technical experts as may be necessary, it being understood that all the employees of the New Company shall have their salaries and such of their expenses as it may be found necessary paid by the New Company and that the said Sulzberger shall in no wise be individually called upon to participate in any such payment.
(9) It is a part of this Agreement that the said Sulzberger shall be given the absolute and final management and control of the affairs of the New Company in all matters of construction, operation and selling for a period of 20 (twenty) years starting from the time of the commencement of the first construction work which shall be undertaken for the New Company.
>¡t s¡; # sfc % * *

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Aldridge v. Commissioner
51 T.C. 475 (U.S. Tax Court, 1968)
Stages v. Commissioner
1961 T.C. Memo. 267 (U.S. Tax Court, 1961)
Signal Gasoline Corporation v. United States
46 F. Supp. 276 (S.D. California, 1942)
Dubois Lumber Co. v. Commissioner
21 B.T.A. 114 (Board of Tax Appeals, 1930)
Continental Products Co. v. Commissioner
20 B.T.A. 818 (Board of Tax Appeals, 1930)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
20 B.T.A. 818, 1930 BTA LEXIS 2031, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/continental-products-co-v-commissioner-bta-1930.