Delpit v. Commissioner

1992 T.C. Memo. 297, 63 T.C.M. 3053, 1992 Tax Ct. Memo LEXIS 313
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedMay 19, 1992
DocketDocket No. 6388-87
StatusUnpublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 1992 T.C. Memo. 297 (Delpit 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
Delpit v. Commissioner, 1992 T.C. Memo. 297, 63 T.C.M. 3053, 1992 Tax Ct. Memo LEXIS 313 (tax 1992).

Opinion

LARRY D. DELPIT AND DOROTHY D. DELPIT, TRANSFEREES, Petitioners v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent
Delpit v. Commissioner
Docket No. 6388-87
United States Tax Court
T.C. Memo 1992-297; 1992 Tax Ct. Memo LEXIS 313; 63 T.C.M. (CCH) 3053;
May 19, 1992, Filed

*313 Decision will be entered in accordance with respondent's computation under Rule 155.

Jerry W. Carlton and John F. Daum, for petitioners.
John Kent and Marlene Kristovich, for respondent.
PARR

PARR

SUPPLEMENTAL MEMORANDUM OPINION

PARR, Judge: These proceedings are under Rule 155. 1 The opinion of this Court, in which we found petitioners liable as transferees under section 6901, was filed on April 2, 1991, as T.C. Memo. 1991-147. Petitioners have objected to respondent's computation under Rule 155, and have proffered their own computation. We find petitioners' arguments without merit and uphold respondent's Rule 155 computation.

I. Assets Petitioners Received From Kern, Inc.

In our original opinion we found that KORC, the conduit through which Kern, Inc.'s assets passed into the hands of petitioners, *314 transferred $ 30,403,511 of assets in addition to the litigation rights to three pieces of litigation: (1) United States Department of Energy, (2) Armstrong Petroleum, and (3) Tenneco Oil Company, to petitioners. Petitioners received $ 41 million from the Tenneco litigation, $ 470,341 from the Armstrong litigation, and nothing from the Department of Energy litigation, which remained outstanding at the time of trial. 2

Petitioners want to exclude the three litigations from the value of the assets they received from Kern, Inc. Petitioners completely misunderstand the holding of our original opinion. The litigation payments in both the Tenneco and Armstrong litigations are assets of Kern, Inc., received by petitioners. Specifically, petitioners received $ 30,276,808 in Kern, Inc.'s assets in the form of note payments from KORC, the entity which Kern, Inc., liquidated into. The $ 30,276,808 is the sum of all KORC's*315 note payments to petitioners less the $ 126,543 we found KORC earned in 1982. The record lacks any evidence that KORC earned any other moneys after 1982. Petitioners also received $ 41,470,341 of Kern, Inc.'s assets in the form of the litigation proceeds. Therefore, in total petitioners received $ 71,747,149 of Kern, Inc.'s assets in a transaction the substance of which was a liquidating distribution from Kern, Inc. and its subsidiaries through a conduit entity, KORC, to the sole shareholder petitioner Larry Delpit.

II. Credits for Amounts Petitioners Transferred to KORC

Petitioners cite California Civil Code sec. 3439.09(b) (West 1970); Aggregates Associated, Inc. v. Packwood, 375 P.2d 425 (Cal. 1962); and Patterson v. Missler, 48 Cal. Rptr. 215 (Ct. App. 1965), for the proposition that under California law, it is clear that respondent's recovery is limited to the amount by which the property KORC transferred to petitioners exceeds the consideration given by petitioners, the Kern, Inc. stock, plus interest on that consideration at the statutory prejudgment rate. Petitioners' argument is without merit, and it is clear that none *316 of the three sources of California law petitioners cite applies to their transactions.

California Civil Code sec. 3439.09(b) (West 1970) provides:

(b) A purchaser or encumbrancer who without actual fraudulent intent has given less than a fair consideration for the conveyance or obligation, may retain the property or obligation as security for repayment. [Emphasis added.]

Petitioner 3 was the sole shareholder and director of Kern, Inc. Petitioners are neither purchasers nor encumbrancers. To the contrary, petitioners are the recipients of Kern, Inc.'s assets through a liquidating distribution of Kern, Inc., and its subsidiaries achieved by means of a transaction in which (1) petitioner sold all of his stock in Kern, Inc. to KORC for inadequate consideration, (2) Kern, Inc. liquidated into KORC one day after the stock sale, and (3) KORC paid petitioner for the stock with Kern, Inc.'s assets.

Next, petitioners cite Aggregates Associated, Inc. v. Packwood, 375 P.2d 425 (Cal. 1962).*317 First, we point out that this case was overruled by Liodas v. Sahadi

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1992 T.C. Memo. 297, 63 T.C.M. 3053, 1992 Tax Ct. Memo LEXIS 313, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/delpit-v-commissioner-tax-1992.