Farmers Cooperative Grain Co. v. Commissioner

39 T.C. 547, 1962 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 9
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedDecember 18, 1962
DocketDocket No. 68513
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 39 T.C. 547 (Farmers Cooperative Grain 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
Farmers Cooperative Grain Co. v. Commissioner, 39 T.C. 547, 1962 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 9 (tax 1962).

Opinion

MulkoNey, Judge:

The respondent determined deficiencies in the income tax of petitioner for the taxable years ended June 30,1954, and June 30,1955, in the respective amounts of $5,400.68 and $7,455.76.

The principal issue is whether income received for storage and handling of grain delivered to petitioner’s elevator in satisfaction of Commodity Credit loans is to be considered nonpatron income and therefore not excludable from petitioner’s gross income as patronage dividends.

FINDINGS OF FACT.

Some of the facts are stipulated and they are found accordingly.

The petitioner is a nonexempt farmers’ cooperative association, organized and operated during the taxable years involved under chapter 499 of the Code of Iowa (1958). Its principal place of business is located in Randall, Iowa.

The petitioner keeps its books and files its income tax returns on an accrual basis for a fiscal year ending on June 30. Its returns for the taxable years ended June 30,1954, and June 30,1955, were filed with, the district director of internal revenue for the district of Iowa.

Petitioner is a purchasing and marketing cooperative, dealing in grain and farm supplies. These business activities are carried on in three departments, described in the computations of patronage dividends attached to the petitioner’s income tax returns for the respective years as grain, petroleum, and merchandise, respectively. During the taxable years involved each of petitioner’s three departments transacted business with nonmembers, as well as with members of the petitioner.

Patronage dividends for the taxable years involved were allocated to petitioner’s members pursuant to a preexisting obligation.

During the taxable years involved, the petitioner received from producers storage fees for the storing of grain of said producers, members and nonmembers, as follows:

Taxable year Amount
June 30, 1954_$2,579.75
June 30,1955_ 2, 305. 54

These amounts were included by the petitioner in the gross savings and income of its grain department in computing its exclusions from gross income for allocated patronage dividends.

During the taxable years involved, the petitioner received from the Commodity Credit Corporation (hereinafter referred to as CCC) storage fees for the storing of grain of producers, members and nonmembers, for the periods of time prior to default by said producers in satisfaction of loan agreements executed by them and prior to the date of the takeover of said grain by the Commodity Credit Corporation in satisfaction of such loan agreements with the said producers, in the following amounts:

Taxable year Amount
June 30, 1954_ $122.11
June 30, 1955_ 1, 883. 74

During the taxable years involved, the petitioner also received from the CCC additional handling fees. The amounts of these handling fees and the nature of the services performed by the petitioner are set forth below:

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In petitioner’s income tax returns for the fiscal years ended June 30, 1954, and June 30, 1955, petitioner claimed exclusions from gross income for allowable patronage refunds in the amounts of $33,016.28 and $36,806.80, which had been computed by inclusion of compensation received for the handling and storing of CCC grain as member business. Respondent’s determinations of deficiencies eliminated such compensation in the computation of excludable patronage dividend income and held such compensation from the CCC was taxable as “other income.” Petitioner now concedes some of such compensation was not excludable as patronage dividends.

Petitioner used the bushel as the unit of measure to compute the percentage of its grain department business that was attributable to member patronage and the percentage thereof that was attributable to nonmember patronage. Petitioner included in the computation the grain delivered in satisfaction of CCC loan and purchase agreements (as well as grain acquired by purchase), resulting in 85.77 percent and 86.22 percent as the percentages of its grain department business attributable to member patronage in the fiscal years 1954 and 1955, respectively.

Respondent, in computing the percentage of grain department income allowable to members’ patronage dividends, eliminated from the bushel totals the grain delivered in satisfaction of CCC loan and purchase agreements. With the CCC grain eliminated, the percentage of grain department income attributable to members’ patronage dividends was computed as 85.59 percent for the fiscal year 1954 and 81.09 percent for the fiscal year 1955.

OPINION.

It is well established that a nonexempt cooperative, such as petitioner, may exclude from gross income the earnings that qualify as patronage dividends. It is equally well settled that one of the prerequisites of a true patronage dividend is that the profit must have been derived from transactions with the members, to whom the allocation of patronage dividends is made, and not from nonmember business.

The principal question to be determined here is whether certain storage and handling fees received by the petitioner from the Commodity Credit Corporation (a nonmember) for certain specified services, are excludable from petitioner’s gross income as patronage dividends.

In Pomeroy Cooperative Grain, Co., 31 T.C. 674 (partially affirmed Pomeroy Cooperative Grain Co. v. Commissioner, 288 F. 2d 326), we held with regard to a nonexempt cooperative, such as petitioner, “that the amounts allocated by petitioner to its members only, out of the compensation which it received from the C.C.C. for handling and storing Government grain, are not excludible from petitioner’s gross income, as part of its patronage dividends.” This holding was specifically affirmed by the Court of Appeals (Eighth Circuit) where, in the course of its opinion, that court stated (288 F. 2d at 331) :

The Tax Court was warranted on the record before us in determining that storage and handling charges collected by the taxpayer from the C.C.C. for services rendered after the C.C.C. had obtained title to the grain were not profit or income realized from transactions with member-patrons of the taxpayer.

After our opinion in Pomeroy Cooperative Crain Co., supra, the Commissioner published Rev. Rui. 59-107, 1959-1 C.B. 20,1 and this ruling was specifically approved in the opinion of the Court of Appeals upon the appeal of that case (288 F. 2d at 330, 331).

Petitioner’s position here is that a breakdown of the storage and handling charges paid by the CCC shows that some of the income it derives from such charges is properly allocable as patronage refunds and therefore properly excludable from its income.

Petitioner states on brief:

Commodity Credit grain income breaks down into five categories:

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Related

Farmers Cooperative Co. v. Commissioner
1963 T.C. Memo. 47 (U.S. Tax Court, 1963)
Wallingford Cooperative Elevator Co. v. Commissioner
1963 T.C. Memo. 46 (U.S. Tax Court, 1963)
Klemme Cooperative Grain Co. v. Commissioner
1963 T.C. Memo. 45 (U.S. Tax Court, 1963)
Farmers Cooperative Grain Co. v. Commissioner
39 T.C. 547 (U.S. Tax Court, 1962)

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Bluebook (online)
39 T.C. 547, 1962 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 9, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/farmers-cooperative-grain-co-v-commissioner-tax-1962.