Eastern Service Corp. v. Commissioner

73 T.C. 833, 1980 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 188
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedFebruary 19, 1980
DocketDocket No. 497-74
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 73 T.C. 833 (Eastern Service Corp. 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
Eastern Service Corp. v. Commissioner, 73 T.C. 833, 1980 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 188 (tax 1980).

Opinion

Wilbur, Judge:

Respondent determined a deficiency of $281,638.54 in petitioner’s income tax for the taxable year 1969. Some minor adjustments have been conceded by petitioner. The remaining issue1 for our decision is whether petitioner is entitled to all or part of a deduction of $498,512.44 under section 162(d)2 in connection with the acquisition of certain shares of common stock of the Federal National Mortgage Association. If we find that petitioner is entitled to a deduction under section 162(d), we must then ascertain the fair market value of the stock on the date it was acquired in order to compute the amount of the deduction.

FINDINGS OF FACT

Some of the facts have been stipulated by the parties. The stipulated facts and the attached exhibits are incorporated herein by this reference. A summary of the pertinent facts is set forth below.

Eastern Service Corp. (hereinafter referred to as petitioner) is a New York corporation. At the time of the filing of the petition in this case, petitioner’s principal office was in Hempstead, N.Y. Petitioner filed its Federal income tax return for the taxable year 1969 with the Internal Revenue Service Center in Andover, Mass.

During 1969, petitioner was a mortgage seller-servicer. In its business, petitioner originated mortgage loans on residential properties and then sold the loans to permanent institutional investors, including the Federal National Mortgage Association (hereinafter referred to as FNMA). After the sale, petitioner serviced the accounts of the institutional investors to whom the mortgages had been sold. Servicing an account involved collecting the monthly payments under the mortgage and remitting the funds to the proper permanent investor, taxing authorities, and insurance companies, as well as inspecting the buildings for the permanent investor. For performing these functions, petitioner received a servicing fee, which was approximately one-half of 1 percent of the mortgage principal.

Petitioner preferred to sell mortgages to permanent institutional investors other than FNMA, because only FNMA exacted a nonrefundable commitment fee, and in addition had certain stock purchase and stock retention requirements. However, petitioner, along with other mortgage sellers, turned to FNMA for mortgage funds in periods of tight credit. Because of its size and its preferred borrowing status as a federally sponsored credit agency, FNMA was able to gather funds for the mortgage market during periods of cyclical decline, when other permanent investors had a scarcity of liquid funds available for mortgage lending.

Petitioner began selling mortgages to FNMA in 1968 after it became an FNMA approved seller-servicer. During 1968 and thereafter, FNMA was the principal purchaser of mortgages originated by petitioner. Mortgages sold to FNMA typically have a 25- to 30-year term. If the home is sold and a new loan made, if the owner refinances the loan, or if the mortgage is prepaid for any reason, the mortgage will have a lesser life. For these reasons, the average life of an FNMA mortgage serviced by petitioner during 1969 was approximately 15 years.

Under the Federal National Mortgage Association Charter Act of 1954, Pub. L. 560, 68 Stat. 612, 12 U.S.C. sec. 1716 et seq. (hereinafter referred to as the FNMA Charter Act), when mortgage sellers such as petitioner sell mortgages to FNMA, they are required to make payments of nonrefundable capital contributions to FNMA measured by a percentage of the unpaid mortgage principal. For these capital contributions, mortgage sellers are issued shares of FNMA’s common stock. Section 303(b) of the FNMA Charter Act, as it governed petitioner’s transactions with FNMA before September 1,1968, provided in pertinent part:

The Association shall accumulate funds for its capital surplus account from private sources by requiring each mortgage seller to make payments of nonrefundable capital contributions, equal to not more than 2 per centum nor less than 1 per centum of the unpaid principal amounts of mortgages purchased or to be purchased by the Association from such seller * * *

Under the rules governing sales transactions entered into before September 1, 1968, after petitioner, as a seller-servicer, made the required purchases of FNMA stock, it was free to dispose of the stock. No laws, regulations, or rules prevented petitioner’s immediate resale of the stock it had purchased prior to September 1,1968, in conformity with the mandates of section 303(b) of the FNMA Charter Act.

In 1968, section 303(c) of the FNMA Charter Act was amended to require that each seller-servicer own a minimum amount of FNMA stock. The stock retention requirements added for the first time by the 1968 amendments read in pertinent part:

The corporation shall at all times require each servicer of its mortgages to own a minimum amount of common stock of the corporation, measured by its stated value. Such minimum amount shall not exceed 2 per centum, as determined from time to time by the corporation with the approval of the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, of the aggregate outstanding principal balances of all mortgages of the corporation which have been purchased subsequent to September 1,1968, and which are then serviced by such servicer for the corporation. * * *

Regulations promulgated by FNMA under section 303(c) of the FNMA Charter Act and incorporated into its mortgage servicing contract also required that seller-servicers retain prescribed amounts of FNMA common stock as a condition to servicing home mortgages purchased by FNMA.

In 1969, and at its earliest opportunity, petitioner sold all the FNMA stock it was required to purchase as a seller during 1968 under section 303(b) of the FNMA Charter Act. Petitioner retained only the amount of FNMA stock which FNMA servicers were required to retain under the amendments which took effect on September 1,1968.

In 1969, petitioner originated first mortgage loans totaling $56,300,000 of which $33 million was sold to FNMA. Pursuant to the stock purchase requirements, petitioner purchased 3,701 shares of FNMA stock during 1969 for an aggregate purchase price of $498,513. Subsequently, these shares were split 4 to 1, and then were split 4 to 1, again, thus becoming 59,216 shares. For purposes of these proceedings, the parties have stipulated that the mean bid and asked price of the FNMA stock in the over-the-counter market at all relevant times was not less than the issue price of the FNMA stock purchased by petitioner.

OPINION

The issue before us is how to treat shares of common stock that petitioner was required to purchase and retain in order to do business with FNMA. Under section 162(d),3 petitioner is entitled to a current deduction whenever the amount of capital contributions it is required to make in exchange for FNMA stock exceeds the fair market value of the stock on the date of issue. It is petitioner’s position that because it was required to hold the stock it was issued in 1969 so long as it serviced the mortgages for FNMA, the stock is restricted stock, and therefore, a discount must be applied in order to determine its fair market value.

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Related

Eastern Service Corp. v. Commissioner
73 T.C. 833 (U.S. Tax Court, 1980)

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Bluebook (online)
73 T.C. 833, 1980 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 188, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/eastern-service-corp-v-commissioner-tax-1980.