Gillis v. United States

267 F. Supp. 547, 19 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1126, 1966 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10532
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Texas
DecidedDecember 29, 1966
DocketCiv. A. No. 65-B-57
StatusPublished

This text of 267 F. Supp. 547 (Gillis v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gillis v. United States, 267 F. Supp. 547, 19 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1126, 1966 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10532 (S.D. Tex. 1966).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

GARZA, District Judge.

This is a suit for the recovery of federal income taxes and interest in the amount of $15,140.91 paid for the years. 1957 and 1958.

The Plaintiff-Husband held a twenty-five per cent interest in the Vernon M. Murphy Cotton Company. The Vernon M. Murphy Cotton Company was a business partnership operating a cotton buying and selling business with the principal offices in Harlingen, Cameron County, Texas. The partnership operated on a fiscal taxable year beginning February 1st and continuing through January 31st of the subsequent year, and maintained and operated its business, books and records on an accrual accounting basis, and filed its partnership income tax information returns on an accrual basis.

The Plaintiff taxpayers filed their personal income tax returns on a calendar year basis and included therein their twenty-five per cent portion of net income and/or net loss from the Vernon M. Murphy Cotton Company partnership as reflected on the partnership returns, of that company.

[549]*549The Internal Revenue Service, in auditing the return filed by the partnership, questioned certain deductions which the partnership made as accrued liabilities. This, in turn, necessitated changes in the personal income tax returns of the Plaintiffs here, which increased their tax liability for the years 1957 and 1958. The taxes as recomputed were paid, a claim for refund filed and denied, giving rise to this suit. The Plaintiffs’ complaint is authorized by the Internal Revenue Code and it has been stipulated, and the Court finds, that it has jurisdiction of the subject-matter and of the parties.

Two questions are presented for the Court’s determination, as follows:

1) In determining the Taxpayers’ income for the years 1957 and 1958 from the Vernon M. Murphy Cotton Company, was the partnership entitled to claim as deductions accrued liabilities in the amount of $21,000.00 for the fiscal year ending January 31, 1957, and $55,987.50 for the fiscal year ending January .31, 1958, which amounts represented unfulfilled Commodity Credit Corporation export obligations on 700 bales of cotton for the partnership’s fiscal year ending January 31, 1957, and 1,493 bales of cotton for the partnership’s fiscal year ending January 31, 1958?

2) In determining the Taxpayers’ income for the year 1958 from the Vernon M. Murphy Cotton Company, was the partnership entitled to deduct as an accrued liability the amount of $64,690.41 for the fiscal year ending January 31, 1958, which amount represents claims of a foreign purchaser involving the quality standards of cotton sold by the partnership during the fiscal year ending January 31, 1958 ?

The 1954 Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. § 461) provides as follows:

SEC. 461. GENERAL RULE FOR TAXABLE YEAR OF DEDUCTION.
(a) General Rule. — The amount of any deduction or credit allowed by this subtitle shall be taken for the taxable year which is the proper taxable year under the method of accounting used in computing taxable income.

The Treasury Regulations on Income Tax under the 1954 Code, provide as follows:

SEC. 1.461.1. GENERAL RULE FOR TAXABLE YEAR OF DEDUCTION.
(a) General Rule. — ■ ******
(2) Taxpayer using an accrual method. — Under an accrual method of accounting, an expense is deductible for the taxable year in which all the events have occurred which determine the fact of the liability and the amount thereof can be determined with reasonable accuracy. * * *
******

To facilitate the understanding of the two questions presented to the Court, we will discuss them as the Commodity Credit Corporation (hereinafter referred to as CCC) Issue, and the Polish Cotton Issue.

COMMODITY CREDIT CORPORATION ISSUE

The United States Government, to assure American farmers a fair return on their cotton crops and to assure a continuation of cotton production, initiated some years before the tax years involved here, a cotton price support program under which the farmer would deliver his cotton to the CCC and get a loan on the same at so much per pound. The farmer could later sell this cotton, or if he did not sell it by a certain time he would keep what was loaned him and his debt to the CCC which advanced the money would be canceled. Many farmers were satisfied with the money loaned by the CCC, which was always more than the actual price of the cotton in the world market, and CCC found itself with thousands of bales of cotton stored in its warehouses.

Beginning in 1956, and continuing through the years involved herein, the CCC conducted a cotton export program [550]*550under which it sold cotton to domestic cotton merchants, such as the Vernon M. Murphy Cotton Company, at prices lower than the domestic market price. A cotton merchant who bought from the CCC had to agree to export (1) the identical bales purchased, or (2) a like quantity of domestic cotton otherwise acquired by a prescribed deadline date, which deadline dates were July 31, 1957, for the year 1956, and July 31, 1958, for the year 1957. The obligation of the domestic cotton merchant to consummate said foreign sale and export was required by the CCC to be guaranteed by said merchant by the latter’s depositing with CCC cash money or acceptable bond or acceptable letter of credit in an amount equivalent to at least $30.00 for each bale of the cotton originally purchased by the merchant from CCC. The Vernon M. Murphy Cotton Company used a performance bond to meet this obligation.

If the cotton merchant failed to export the same or other cotton within the time limit, he would have to pay the CCC an additional amount which would be the amount by which the amount originally paid the CCC was exceeded by (a) the domestic market price of such cotton, or (b) one hundred five per cent (105%) of the cotton export price plus reasonable carrying charges, whichever was higher.

A domestic cotton merchant participating in this CCC program could sell the cotton purchased from the CCC domestically and immediately realize a profit in an amount equivalent to the price at which the cotton was sold by CCC and the domestic price prevailing at the time of the purchase from CCC. However, the merchant would then have to go purchase cotton at the higher domestic price and resell it at foreign sale. Under these circumstances, a cotton merchant would have a “profit” sale and a “loss” sale.

The question presented here was due to the fact that the Vernon M. Murphy Cotton Company made its “profit” sale during its fiscal year which ended on January 31st, but did not make its “loss” sale until its following fiscal year, since the CCC allowed it to comply with its obligation of exporting American cotton by July 31st.

The Vernon M. Murphy Cotton Company, during its fiscal year of February 1, 1956, through January 31, 1957, purchased 700 bales of cotton from CCC at a price approximately $30.00 per bale below the then domestic price, and sold said cotton on the domestic market at the then domestic price, and included the cost of such purchase and sale in its income tax accounting for the fiscal year ending January 31, 1957. The Vernon M.

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267 F. Supp. 547, 19 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1126, 1966 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10532, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gillis-v-united-states-txsd-1966.