Crisp v. United States

34 Fed. Cl. 112, 76 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 6261, 1995 U.S. Claims LEXIS 175, 1995 WL 528339
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedSeptember 7, 1995
DocketNo. 92-870T
StatusPublished

This text of 34 Fed. Cl. 112 (Crisp v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Federal Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Crisp v. United States, 34 Fed. Cl. 112, 76 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 6261, 1995 U.S. Claims LEXIS 175, 1995 WL 528339 (uscfc 1995).

Opinion

OPINION

ANDEWELT, Judge.

I.

In this tax refund action, plaintiff, Don W. Crisp, trustee of the Caroline Hunt Trust Estate (the Trust or Trust Estate), seeks a refund of $2,993,572.811 for income taxes the Trust allegedly overpaid for the tax year ending June 30, 1987, and the shortened tax period ending December 31, 1987.2

In 1935, Caroline Hunt’s parents, H.L. and Lyda Hunt, established the Trust Estate through an “Articles of Agreement and Declaration of Trust” (the Trust Agreement). The Trust Agreement provides that the trustee may, at his or her discretion, make periodic payments to Caroline Hunt during her lifetime and then, for the next 21 years after her death, make periodic payments to Caroline Hunt’s heirs. At the end of the 21-year period following Caroline Hunt’s death, the Trust Agreement obliges the trustee to dissolve the Trust and disburse the assets to Caroline Hunt’s heirs.

I.R.C. § 641 obliges trusts to pay taxes on trust income. When calculating taxable trust income for any given tax year, I.R.C. § 661 permits a deduction from trust income of all distributions made to trust beneficiaries during that tax year up to the amount of the trust’s distributable net income (DNI).3 I.R.C. § 643(a) sets forth the method for calculating a trust’s DNI.

For the two tax periods in issue here, the Trust distributed to Caroline Hunt $4.5 million and $1.6 million, respectively. Pursuant to I.R.C. § 661, the Trust deducted from its income the fiill amounts distributed to Caroline Hunt because the Trust’s DNI for these periods, as calculated by the trustee, exceeded the amounts distributed. In calculating the Trust’s DNI for these two periods, the [114]*114trastee included within the DNI all capital gains credited to the Trust’s capital account by ZH Associates (ZH), a limited partnership in which the Trust is a limited partner.

After conducting an audit, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) concluded that the trustee had improperly included the ZH capital gains in the Trust’s DNI. When the IRS recalculated the Trust’s DNI to exclude these capital gains, the DNI for the respective tax periods fell to $2,665,300 and $600,-252. Because the Trust’s distributions to Caroline Hunt exceeded the recalculated DNI, and because I.R.C. § 661 provides that any deduction from trust income “shall not exceed the [DNI],” the IRS recalculated the Trust’s tax burden to include, as taxable income, the amount of the Trust’s distributions to Caroline Hunt that exceeded the reduced DNI. As a result, the Trust owed taxes, penalties, and interest in the amounts of $2,895,496 and $98,076, respectively.

Plaintiff paid the taxes, penalties, and interest calculated by the IRS, and thereafter filed the instant suit to secure a refund. This action is presently before the court on the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment on the issue of whether the trustee properly included in the Trust’s DNI the ZH capital gains credited to the Trust. There are no material issues of fact in dispute. For the reasons set forth below, plaintiffs motion for summary judgment is granted and defendant’s cross-motion is denied.

II.

The Trust Estate and Robert E. Zoellner (Zoellner) formed ZH pursuant to the New Jersey Uniform Limited Partnership Act and through a January 1, 1982, “Agreement of Limited Partnership” (the Partnership Agreement). The Partnership Agreement designated the Trust as the sole limited partner and Zoellner as the general partner. The Partnership Agreement was later amended to substitute Zoellner Management Company, Inc., of which Zoellner is president, as the general partner.

The Partnership Agreement describes ZH’s business as follows:

The purposes of the Partnership are to engage in trading for its own account, including to deal in arbitrage, hedge arbitrage, option arbitrage, international securities arbitrage (but not currency or commodities arbitrage) and hedge trading and securities trading in connection therewith and otherwise to deal in securities being traded in connection therewith____

ZH engaged primarily in “deal arbitrage” which involves the purchase of securities sought in cash tender offers, exchange offers, or mergers and then the tendering of those securities for cash or new securities.4 ZH also engaged in option arbitrage and hedge trading. Option arbitrage seeks, inter alia, to capture profits derived from the disparity between the open-market share price of a particular stock and the market price for options to purchase or sell that same stock. Hedge trading involves, inter alio, establishing securities positions in one industry and offsetting those positions by taking long or short positions in securities of another industry. ZH received some cash dividends as a consequence of owning securities, but ZH’s primary focus was to buy and sell securities in an attempt to profit from the sudden swings in market value that resulted from the numerous mergers and acquisitions which were prevalent in the 1980s.

Pursuant to the Partnership Agreement, Zoellner, the original general partner, contributed $1 million to ZH and the Trust, the sole limited partner, contributed $5 million. The Partnership Agreement directed the allocation of ZH’s profits and losses as follows: % of the net profits shall be credited to the capital account of the limited partner and % to the capital account of the general partner, and % of the net losses shall be debited from the capital account of the limited partner and $ from the capital account of the general partner. The Partnership Agreement gave [115]*115the general partner the exclusive authority to manage and control the operations of ZH, including the execution of investment decisions.5 The general partner could, at his discretion, distribute profits to the two individual partners when the partners’ combined capital accounts exceeded the initial $6 million combined contribution. Each partner had the right, upon 180 days’ notice to the other partner, to demand dissolution of the partnership and distribution of the capital accounts, subject to the payment of partnership expenses and contingencies related to dissolution.

III.

Congress created DNI specifically to deal with the taxation of estates and trusts and their beneficiaries. See Treas.Reg. § 1.643(a)-0. I.R.C. § 661(a) employs DNI to determine the proportions of the income tax burden borne by the trust or estate and by its beneficiaries. I.R.C. § 643(a) defines DNI as follows:

(a) Distributable net income. — [T]he term “distributable net income” means, with respect to any taxable year, the taxable income of the estate or trust computed with the following modifications____

The listed modifications include deductions for distributions, personal exemption, capital gains and losses, extraordinary dividends and taxable stock dividends, tax-exempt interest, and income of a foreign trust. With respect to capital gains and losses, I.R.C. § 643(a)(3) requires a trustee, when calculating DNI, to exclude capital gains from trust income under the following circumstances:

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Bluebook (online)
34 Fed. Cl. 112, 76 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 6261, 1995 U.S. Claims LEXIS 175, 1995 WL 528339, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/crisp-v-united-states-uscfc-1995.