F. W. Poe Mfg. Co. v. Commissioner

25 T.C. 691, 1956 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 302
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedJanuary 12, 1956
DocketDocket No. 38661
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 25 T.C. 691 (F. W. Poe Mfg. 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
F. W. Poe Mfg. Co. v. Commissioner, 25 T.C. 691, 1956 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 302 (tax 1956).

Opinion

OPINION.

Arundell, Judge:

This proceeding now comes before us pursuant to mandate of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, remanding the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with its per curiam opinion filed July 13, 1955. (224 F. 2d 254.)

In a Memorandum Findings of Fact and Opinion filed September 24, 1954, we held, on authority of Mutual Lumber Co., 16 T. C. 370, that we were without jurisdiction to consider issues raised by either litigant relating to the general provisions of the excess profits tax statute and, by order entered September 28, 1954, we dismissed the proceeding for lack of jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decided that we did have jurisdiction to consider such issues and therefore reversed our order of dismissal and remanded the case.

Petitioner is a South Carolina corporation with its office at Green-ville, South Carolina.

The years involved are the fiscal years ended August 31, 1941, and 1942. The returns were filed on November 23,1941, and November 14, 1942, with the collector of internal revenue for the district of South Carolina. No point is made that the 1941 return was 8 days late. Applications for relief under section 722 of the 1939 Code were timely filed on September 15, 1943. The internal revenue agent in charge at Columbia, South Carolina, sent to petitioner on October 13, 1944, a revenue agent’s report dated January 25, 1944, in which the agent had proposed for determination by his superiors deficiencies as follows:

Excess Fiscal year Income tax profits tax
1941_ $87. 01 $16, 669.66
1942_ 4, 786.73 16,514. 55

The agent, in arriving at the above amounts, had given petitioner the benefit of some relief under section 722. Petitioner, upon receiving this information, agreed that it owed the proposed additional taxes and, pursuant to section 272 (d) of the 1939 Code, executed on November 17, 1944, a waiver of restrictions on assessment and collection of deficiencies contained in section 272 (a) of the 1939 Code and paid those additional taxes on that same day. The amounts were assessed by the Commissioner on December 15, 1944. Petitioner never filed any waiver extending the period of limitations on assessment and collection of taxes for the taxable years except as indicated above. The Commissioner mailed a statutory notice to petitioner on November 2, 1951, in accordance with the requirements of section 732 of the 1939 Code, and it is upon this notice that our jurisdiction in ,the present proceeding must be found. In that notice the Commissioner advised petitioner of the disallowance of the claims for relief under section 722 and in the same communication advised that “a determination of your income tax liability and excess-profits tax liability for the taxable years” 1941 and 1942 “discloses deficiencies” in amounts identical1 with those proposed in the revenue agent’s report dated January 25, 1944. There is no statement accompanying the notice setting forth any adjustments affecting the income tax liability or the excess profits tax liability of petitioner for the taxable years. The taxpayer thereafter filed a petition with this Court alleging that the deficiencies “set forth in said notice of disallowance * * * were paid by petitioner on November 17,1944.” In his answer the respondent denied this allegation and prayed that his “determination be in all respects approved.” The taxpayer then filed a reply in which the details of payment were more specifically set forth. Later this Court granted a motion by respondent for permission to amend his answer. In his amended answer the respondent in effect conceded payment of the deficiencies set forth in the deficiency notice of November 2,1951, and claimed for the first time additional deficiencies in excess profits taxes for the years 1941 and 1942 of $23,895.85 and $33,738.87, respectively. In its reply to the amended answer, petitioner pleads the statute of limitations as a bar to the assessment and collection of such additional deficiencies. Petitioner claims relief under section 722 only in the event that the limitations issue is decided against it and then only to the extent of the so-called deficiencies affirmatively pleaded in the amended answer.

The proceeding was then submitted under Rule 30 with a stipulation of facts, and the issues were severed in order that the statute of limitations issue might be decided first.

The excess profits tax returns showed liabilities in excess profits tax of $91,129.49 for the taxable year 1941 and $341,937.27 for the taxable year 1942, which were subsequently assessed and paid. The taxes wer< computed by the use of a credit based upon invested capital under the provisions of section 714 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939. During 1943, a renegotiation settlement computed under the provisions of section 3806 had the effect of reducing petitioner’s excess profits tax liability for the taxable year 1942 to $327,907.45.

Petitioner’s liability for excess profits taxes, as set forth in the revenue agent’s report was calculated by the respondent’s examining officer by the use of a credit based upon a constructive average base period net income under the provisions of section 722, but the liability was also calculated upon the basis of various other adjustments, with the result that the proposed deficiencies mentioned in the report arose in excess profits tax for the taxable years 1941 and 1942 despite the use of section 722 in calculating the tax.

The total assessments against petitioner on account of income and excess profits taxes aré as follows:

Taxable year 1941 Excess profits tax Income tax Taxable year 1942 Excess profits tax Income tax Originally assessed,... Renegotiation adjustment.. $91,129.49 $130,410.85 $341,937.27 14,029.82 Net previous assessments... Deficiencies assessed December 15,1944— $91,129.49 16,669.66 $130,410.85 87.01 $327,907.45 16,514.65 Totals.. $107,799.15 $130,497.86 $344,422.00 $118,588.52 2,603.30 $115,985.22 4,786.73 $120,771.95

All of the above assessments were paid by petitioner on or before November 17,1944.

According to the report of the respondent’s examining officer, the correct liability of petitioner in excess profits taxes, if the claims for relief under section 722 are disregarded, is as follows:

Taxable year 1941_$131, 695.00
Taxable year 1942_ 378,160.87

The differences between the liabilities immediately above and the total assessments of excess profits taxes, as set out in the previous paragraph, constitute the “so-called” deficiencies claimed by the respondent in his amended answer as follows:

Taxable year 1941 Taxable year 1942
Revenue agent’s report, disregarding section 722
claims_$131,695.00 Total assessments previously paid_ 107,799.15 $378,160.87 344,422.00
Deficiencies now claimed by respondent in amended
answer_ $23,895.85 $33,738.87

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F. W. Poe Mfg. Co. v. Commissioner
25 T.C. 691 (U.S. Tax Court, 1956)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
25 T.C. 691, 1956 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 302, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/f-w-poe-mfg-co-v-commissioner-tax-1956.