Dyer v. United States

185 F. Supp. 880, 6 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5525, 1960 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5081
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Kentucky
DecidedJuly 22, 1960
DocketCiv. A. No. 1082
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 185 F. Supp. 880 (Dyer v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dyer v. United States, 185 F. Supp. 880, 6 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5525, 1960 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5081 (W.D. Ky. 1960).

Opinion

SHELBOURNE, Chief Judge.

This action was instituted by Dr. Sydney G. Dyer and his wife, Zanna Dyer, June 4, 1959, to recover $1,374.07, and interest thereon, alleged to have been erroneously assessed and collected from the plaintiffs as taxes for the years 1954 and 1955. The assessment was based upon the taxpayers’ deduction from their income taxes in 1954 and 1955 a' loss which occurred in 1953 and carried forward as a net operating loss. The loss occurred by reason of the sale, under a mortgage foreclosure, of certain hospital and medical supplies and equipment which plaintiff Dr. Dyer had purchased in July, 1950. The case was tried tc the Court without a jury on November 18, 1959.

The substantial facts are not greatly in dispute. The question to be determined is whether or not a loss sustained by foreclosure and sale of the hospital and medical equipment and supplies in 1953 constituted a net operating loss. There is a minor dispute as to whether or not the taxpayer, in assessing his loss, used a correct adjusted cost basis.

The statutes involved are Sections 122(a) and 122(d) (5) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, 26 U.S.C.A. §§ 122(a), (d) (5), which are as follows:

“§ 122 (As added by Sec. 211 of the Revenue Act of 1939, c. 247, 53 Stat. 862, and as amended by Sec. 105(e) (3) of the Revenue Act of 1942, c. 619, 56 Stat. 798.) Net operating loss deduction
“(a) Definition of net operating loss. As used in this section, the term ‘net operating loss’ means the excess of the deductions allowed by this chapter over the gross income, with the exceptions, additions, and limitations provided in subsection (d).
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“(d) Exceptions, additions, and limitations. The exceptions, additions, and limitations referred to in subsections (a), (b), and (c) shall be as follows:
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“(5) Deductions otherwise allowed by law not attributable to the operation of a trade or business regularly carried on by the taxpayer shall (in the case of a taxpayer other than a corporation) be allowed only to the extent of the amount of the gross income not derived from such [882]*882trade or business. For the purposes of this paragraph deductions and gross income shall be computed with the exceptions, additions, and limitations specified in pargraphs (1) to (4) of this subsection.”

Findings of Fact

Most of the salient facts have been stipulated, and from the stipulated facts and the testimony of the taxpayer the Court makes the following findings of fact:

1. On or about July 18, 1950, taxpayer, Dr. Sydney G. Dyer, executed a chattel mortgage in favor of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. In the latter part of 1952, Reconstruction Finance Corporation instituted an action in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky at Paducah to foreclose its lien upon the mortgaged property when Dr. Dyer defaulted in payment under the mortgage and note which accompanied it.

2. On January 30, 1953, a Special Commissioner appointed by the Court sold the mortgaged property to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, pursuant to the order of the Court, for $8,-600, which amount represented the highest bid received at the sale.

3. Taxpayer, Sydney G. Dyer and his wife, Zanna Dyer, timely filed a joint federal income tax return on a calendar year basis for the year 1953 with the District Director of Internal Revenue at Louisville, Kentucky. On this return taxpayer, Sydney G. Dyer, claimed the loss on the sale of said mortgaged property as a loss on the sale of a capital asset in the amount of $16,152.18, using an adjusted cost basis of $24,752.19. Taxpayer availed himself of the maximum $1,000 deduction on the loss against ordinary income for each of the years 1953, 1954, and 1955.

4. Taxpayers’ returns showed adjusted gross incomes of $7,176.75, $3,-624.78, and $9,112.25, respectively, for each of the years 1953, 1954, and 1955, upon which taxes were paid in the amount of $902.52, $173.00, and $915.05, respectively, for the years 1953, 1954, and 1955.

5. Upon audit, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue determined that the loss on the sale of the hospital equipment was an ordinary loss on depreciable property used in a trade or business and as such was deductible in full when it occurred in the taxable year 1953. On September 7, 1956, an overassessment of the entire tax was allowed for the year 1953 in the amount of $902.52 Accordingly, the capital loss carry-over deduction of $1,000 claimed by the taxpayers in each of the years 1954 and 1955 was disallowed and deficiency assessments were made on October 31, 1956, in the amount of $233.85 plus interest of $16.25 for the year 1954 and $220.01 plus interest of $6.67 for the year 1955.

6. April 7, 1958, the taxpayers filed claims for refund in the amount of $353 for the year 1954 and $1,135.06 for the year 1955 for the alleged reason that Dr. Dyer was entitled to an operating loss carry-over in the amount of $4,624.78 for the year 1954 and $4,350.65 for the year 1955.

7. The Commissioner had previously effected a reduction in the taxpayers’ taxable income for the year of 1953 in the amount of $7,165.75, the total amount determined by the Commissioner to represent the deductible loss incurred by the taxpayers in the sale under the mortgage foreclosure.

8. From the testimony of the taxpayer, Dr. Dyer, it is apparent and the Court finds that he furnished and operated a clinic or a small hospital at Kuttawa, Kentucky, with the proceeds of the loan obtained from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation executed July 18, 1950. The note gave to Reconstruction Finance Corporation a lien on all of the equipment and supplies then owned or thereafter acquired by Dr. Dyer, the net cost of which to the taxpayer was $34,089.03. He claimed and was allowed depreciation of $9,336.85, so that the adjusted tax basis, that is, the adjusted cost basis of the mortgaged property was $24,752.10. At the foreclosure sale the [883]*883property brought $8,600.00, leaving a loss resulting from the sale of $16,152.-10.

Conclusions of Law

This Court has jurisdiction of the parties and the subject matter. Title 28, Section 1346(a) (1), United States Code.

The plaintiffs lean heavily on the case of Goble v. Commissioner, 23 T.C. 593. In that ease the taxpayer was engaged in a farming and livestock enterprise. Part of the stipulated facts was that the purchase, trade, and sale of farm machinery was incidental to the operation of the farming enterprise, though the taxpayer was not engaged in the business of buying or selling new, used, or salvaged farm equipment. During the year 1949, the taxpayer had sold a boar and certain farm machinery which she considered no longer useful in her operation. She claimed an operational loss resulting from the sale. The Tax Court held that the loss sustained in the sale of the animal and the farm machinery was attributable to the operation of a business regularly carried on within the meaning of Section 122(d) (5). The Commissioner contended that the loss from the sale of the assets did not qualify as a net operating loss because the taxpayer was not engaged in the business of buying, selling, trading, or otherwise dealing in farm machinery or livestock.

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Related

Foster v. United States
213 F. Supp. 27 (W.D. Missouri, 1963)

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Bluebook (online)
185 F. Supp. 880, 6 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5525, 1960 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5081, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dyer-v-united-states-kywd-1960.