Cramp Shipbuilding Co. v. Commissioner

17 T.C. 516, 1951 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 75
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedSeptember 28, 1951
DocketDocket Nos. 12673, 16347
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 17 T.C. 516 (Cramp Shipbuilding 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
Cramp Shipbuilding Co. v. Commissioner, 17 T.C. 516, 1951 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 75 (tax 1951).

Opinion

OPINION.

Aeundell, Jvdge:

The issues that remain for decision may be classified under two headings. Under the first heading, there is a group of issues that arise out of the respondent’s determinations of deficiencies and which are based on the petitioner’s allegations of error in such determinations. These issues have to do principally with the proper year in which fees and reimbursable costs under contracts with the United States Navy are properly includible in income. As to these, the facts have been stipulated and are herein referred to as the stipulated issues.

Under the second heading, there is but one issue which is framed by an amendment to respondent’s answer to an amended petition and the petitioner’s reply thereto. The issue so framed is whether amounts borrowed by the petitioner may be treated as borrowed capital for the purposes of computing its excess profits credit under the invested capital method. At the hearing on this issue, oral evidence was heard and documentary evidence was received. This issue will hereinafter be referred to as the invested capital issue.

I. The Stipulated Issues.

1. Pennsylvania Corporate Tax.

Pennsylvania imposed a tax which is denominated in the stipulation as a “Corporate Net Income” tax. The petitioner accrued the amount of such tax in the year for which it was imposed in the period 1941-1945, but did not claim reimbursement therefor because of the Navy’s position that such tax was an income tax and not a reimbursable item. In 1945, the Navy reversed its position, and in 1946 it reimbursed the petitioner for a substantial part of such tax. Then the General Accounting Office disallowed such reimbursement and the Navy recouped from the petitioner the amount reimbursed to it (except for $355.62, which amount the General Accounting Office had not disallowed). The petitioner’s claims for reimbursement under its terminated contracts were subsequently settled in a lump sum settlement of a number of disputed items, and its claims under its completed contracts were allowed in full.

The only dispute between the parties is as to the year in which the reimbursement of the amount of the Pennsylvania tax is properly includible in income of the petitioner for Federal income tax purposes. We are not called upon to decide whether such tax was an income tax or franchise tax, or whether it was a properly reimbursable item of cost under the petitioner’s contracts with the Navy. We assume that the ultimate decision of the General Accounting Office and the Navy was correct and that the amount of the Pennsylvania tax was a reimbursable item, and is properly includible in petitioner’s income.

The position of the petitioner is that throughout the taxable years there was a dispute between it and the Navy as to its right to reimbursement for the Pennsylvania tax and that where such a dispute exists, no income is realized until the year in which liability by the debtor is conceded or determined and until the creditor’s right to payment becomes irrevocably fixed. The respondent makes alternative arguments. His principal contention is that the petitioner’s right to reimbursement for the Pennsylvania tax (to the extent eventually allowed) constituted income for the year in which liability for the tax accrued, because that right came into existence in the year of accrual. His alternative arguments are that the reimbursements as eventually allowed were income either (a) in the year in which the tax was paid by the petitioner or (b) not later than the year 1945 when the Navy ruled that such tax was an allowable item of cost.

Both parties cite, among others, the cases of North American Oil Consolidated v. Burnet, 286 U. S. 417, and Security Flour Mills Co. v. Commissioner, 321 U. S. 281. These and other cases lay down broad principles that have become well established in Federal tax law. One of such principles is that a taxpayer is not required to report as income an amount that it may never receive. North American Oil Consolidated v. Burnet, supra; Burnet v. Logan, 283 U. S. 404. Another is that in the case of an accrual basis taxpayer, income is realized in the year in which there has occurred the events which fix the right to receive it, Spring City Foundry Co. v. Commissioner, 292 U. S. 182, even though the amount is not determined within the year, Continental Tie & Lumber Co. v. United States, 286 U. S. 290, and in the recent case of United States v. Lewis, 340 U. S. 590, the Supreme Court again emphasized the fact that “Income taxes must be paid on income earned (or accrued) during an annual accounting period.”

It is our conclusion that under general principles of law the entire amount of the Pennsylvania tax to be reimbursed was accruable as income for the year 1945, but that because of specific statutory provisions that amount must be reduced by the amount that the petitioner was later required to repay to the Navy.

Approaching the present problem from the negative side, it is our view that no amount was properly accruable as income on account of the reimbursement of the Pennsylvania tax prior to the year 1945. It was not known before that year that the amount of such tax would ever be received, in view of the position taken by the Navy, as stipulated, that that tax “was an income tax, which under petitioner’s contracts did not constitute an item of reimbursable cost.” In 1945, however, all events had occurred which fixed the petitioner’s right to be reimbursed for the tax. The petitioner had contracts with the Navy which entitled it to be reimbursed for certain items of construction costs. When the Navy decided in 1945 that the Pennsylvania tax was a franchise tax, the parties to the contract were in agreement as to the petitioner’s right to reimbursement. The amount of the Pennsylvania tax could not thereafter be treated as an amount that the petitioner might never receive. We, therefore, conclude that the entire sum of $247,535.01, representing the Pennsylvania tax for the years 1941 to 1945, inclusive, was properly accruable as income in 1945. Although no deficiency for the year 1941 has been determined, we may examine into the facts as to that year because of a possible carry-over. Section 272 (g) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Although we have decided that, under general principles of tax law, the amount of Pennsylvania tax was accruable in 1945, there are statutory provisions which in our opinion serve to reduce the amount of the accrual and to reduce fro tanto the amount of income for 1945 resulting from the accrual.

Section 3806 (a) (2) of the Internal Revenue Code provides as follows:

(a) Reduction fob Pbiob Taxable Yeae.—
*******
(2) Reduction of eeimbuesement foe pbioe taxable yeae.

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Related

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1964 T.C. Memo. 190 (U.S. Tax Court, 1964)
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21 T.C. 696 (U.S. Tax Court, 1954)
Miller v. Commissioner
20 T.C. 280 (U.S. Tax Court, 1953)
Commissioner v. Harriman Ripley & Co.
202 F.2d 280 (Third Circuit, 1953)
Glenshaw Glass Co. v. Commissioner
18 T.C. 860 (U.S. Tax Court, 1952)
Cramp Shipbuilding Co. v. Commissioner
17 T.C. 516 (U.S. Tax Court, 1951)

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Bluebook (online)
17 T.C. 516, 1951 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 75, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cramp-shipbuilding-co-v-commissioner-tax-1951.