Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. v. United States

60 F.2d 618, 11 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 794, 1932 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1373, 1932 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) 9413, 11 A.F.T.R. (RIA) 794
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedJuly 13, 1932
Docket44-186
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 60 F.2d 618 (Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. v. United States, 60 F.2d 618, 11 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 794, 1932 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1373, 1932 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) 9413, 11 A.F.T.R. (RIA) 794 (S.D.N.Y. 1932).

Opinion

PATTERSON, District Judge.

Suit is brought by the executors of the estate of a decedent to recover the estate tax paid to the United States under the provisions of the Revenue Act of 1918 (40 Stat. 1057). The sum of $2,065.76 was paid by the executors under protest, and a claim for refund disallowed. It is the position of the executors that the decedent, Edward A. Morrison, Jr., was a resident of the United States and that an exemption of $50,000, allowable to residents but not to nonresidents, was therefore deductible; further, that they were entitled to a deduction in the amount of $130,217, representing the value of certain securities claimed to have been acquired by the decedent in exchange for property received from tho estate of his father who died less than five years before the decedent’s death, such property having been included for taxation in the prior estate. If these two points are sound, the deductions exceed the value of the taxable estate, and the executors are entitled to recover the full amount paid.

1. I am satisfied that tho decedent was a resident of the United States at the time of his death, September 10, 1921, and that the estate is entitled to the $50,000 exemption. The decedent was born in New York City and lived here or in nearby suburbs until 1909. lie was married in 3900, had two children bom here, and owned a house at Ardsley-on-Hndson for some time. In 1909 he failed in business and went abroad with his wife and children. For the ten years following he and his family remained in England, occupying in succession several furnished houses in Oxford and the vicinity on short leases. In 1919 they returned to the United States. The children were placed in schools here. The decedent and his wife lived at a hotel in Bronxvillo until the spring of 1921, except for a summer vacation spent in Connecticut. In A pril, 1921, ho returned to England with his family, where he again took a furnished house. In the late summer his wife and children came back here. The decedent was to follow them but remained in England for medical treatment. lie died there September 10, 1923.

Several other matters shed light on tho decedent’s status. From 1909 on ho had no business. He had an interest in some real estate in New York City, but his chief support came from an allowance from his father, Edward A. Morrison, Sr., who lived here and who died August 28, 1919. The decedent received a substantial share of his father's estate, paid over to him in 1919 and 3920. Practically all his property, consisting of cash, securities, clothing, and furniture, was in the United States at the time of his death. He had maintained membership in the Union League Club in New York continuously until his death. In his will, executed in March,' 1921, he described himself as a resident of Westchester county, N. Y., and his will was probated there.

The residence referred to in the statute imposing the estate tax is synonymous with domicile. See Bowring v. Bowers (C. C. A.) 24 F.(2d) 918, 921; Matter of Martin’s Estate, 173 App. Div. 1, 3, 158 N. Y. S. 915. Something more than mere presence or sojourn at a place is connoted. The search is to determine tho place where the decedent had his home, and an important, if not indispensable, factor is the intent of the decedent — facto et animo as the older cases dealing with domicile put it.

It is quite likely that when the decedent took up living in England in 1909, he did so with the idea of having his residence there. He kept no home in this country and had no business here. His remaining in England for ten years gives an element of permanence to his presence there. To be sure, there are tokens of an intention not to sever all ties here — his club membership, the furniture in storage, and other incidents. But the houses in England which he occupied with his family were the only home he maintained, and over the ten-year period from 1909 to 3.939 he never came hack to 1 b is country. I am persuaded that during this part of his life the decedent was a non *620 resident of the United States. He belonged to that class which for one reason or another prefers life abroad to life here.

But I am convinced that upon his return here in 1919 he relinquished his English residence and became once more a resident of the United States. The placing of his children in schools here, the remaining here for two years, above all his recital of his residence in his will, are indicative of a residence here. The fact that while here he lived in a hotel instead of in a house or apartment is of no great significance in an age when thousands stay on in hotels year after year and unquestionably consider them as residences. The decedent certainly had no home at any other place. This residence was not interrupted by the final trip abroad in 1921. The weight of evidence is that this was to be only a matter of months and that, but for his illness, the decedent would have returned when his wife and children did. The taking of a ten-year lease on a house in England was not established.

Upon the whole case I am.convinced that the decedent was a resident of the United States at the time of his death and that the executors should have been granted the $50,-000 exemption.

2. The other question is whether an adequate deduction was allowed by the taxing officers to represent property acquired by the decedent from the estate of his father, who died within five years prior to the decedent’s death and whose estate was taxed.

The' 1918 Revenue Act, in section 403, permitted the deduction of “(a) * * * (2) An amount equal to the value at the time of the decedent’s death of any property, real, personal, or mixed, which can be identified as having been received by the decedent as a share in the estate of any person who died within five years prior to the death of the decedent, or which can be identified as having been acquired by the decedent in exchange for property so received, if an estate tax under the Revenue Act of 1917 or under this Act was collected from such estate, and if such property is included in the decedent’s gross estate.”

The decedent’s father had died on August 28,1919, leaving a large estate. The decedent’s share of this estate exceeded $400,-000, and by the time of his death he had actually received in cash and securities about $380,000, all of which had previously been included in the father’s estate as subject to the estate tax under the 1918 Act. Some ■of the securities so received the decedent had retained until his death in 1921. Others he had sold. He had purchased numerous securities in the interim. In making up the estate tax return, the executors claimed as a deduction practically all the securities owned by the decedent at the time of his death, in part as the identical property received by him from an estate taxed within five years, and in part as property acquired in exchange for property so received. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue allowed the deduction as to the securities received by the decedent from his father’s estate and still owned by him at his death, but disallowed it as to the “exchanged” securities. The question is whether these latter securities or any of them have been “identified as having been acquired by'the decedent in exchange” for property received from his father’s estate.

The only securities sought to be identified at the trial of this case are those bought for the decedent by Oliphant & Co., stockbrokers.

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60 F.2d 618, 11 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 794, 1932 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1373, 1932 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) 9413, 11 A.F.T.R. (RIA) 794, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/farmers-loan-trust-co-v-united-states-nysd-1932.