Grunebaum v. Commissioner

50 T.C. 710, 1968 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 87
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedAugust 6, 1968
DocketDocket Nos. 4170-66, 4171-66
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 50 T.C. 710 (Grunebaum 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
Grunebaum v. Commissioner, 50 T.C. 710, 1968 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 87 (tax 1968).

Opinion

OniNIOST

Raum, Judge:

Section 901 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 entitles a taxpayer, if he so elects, to credit directly against his income tax certain taxes paid to foreign countries or possessions of the United States, “subject to the applicable limitation of section 904.” Section 904(a) contains two alternative limitations on this foreign tax credit, the per country limitation and the overall limitation, the choice between them being left, at least initially, with the taxpayer. Both are designed to prevent the amount of foreign taxes credited from offsetting U.S. tax on the taxpayer’s domestic income, i.e., to restrict the amount of foreign taxes credited to roughly what the U.S. income tax would otherwise have been on the taxpayer’s foreign source income. H. Rept. No. 1358, 86th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 2 (1960), S. Rept. No. 1393, 86th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 3 (1960); H. Rept. No. 350, 67th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 13 (1921).

Petitioners Erich and Kurt Grunebaum, who together with their respective wives filed joint Federal income tax returns for 1961, paid or incurred foreign taxes in 1961 in the amounts of $90,833.46 and $90,646.40, respectively, and each credited foreign taxes directly against U.S. income tax. Each elected to apply the overall limitation in computing the allowable amount of the foreign tax credit, which provides that “the total amount of the credit * * * shall not exceed the same proportion of the tax against which such credit is taken which the taxpayer’s taxable income from sources without the United States * * * bears to his entire taxable income for the same taxable year.” Sec. 904(a)(2), I.E.C. 1954.4 Stated another way, the maximum amount allowable as a foreign tax credit under the overall limitation is expressed by the formula:

Taxable income from sources without the United States^ xj.S. tax before credit
Total taxable income f°r f°reign taxes

Erich Grunebaum computed his overall limitation to be $91,499.08, which amount was greater than the sum of foreign taxes paid or accrued during 1961; he therefore claimed the full amount of $90,-833.46 as a foreign tax credit. Kurt Grunebaum computed his overall limitation to be $88,683.68, which was less than the sum of foreign taxes paid or accrued by him during 1961, and under the statute he could and did claim only the lesser amount as his foreign tax credit. However, the Commissioner recomputed the overall limitation in each case, and determined that under such limitation, properly computed, the maximum amount allowable as a foreign tax credit to Erich was $53,342.77, and that Kurt’s maximum allowable credit was $49,683.02. In his recomputations, the Commissioner adjusted the total taxable income of both Erich and Kurt, and the amount of income tax due after such adjustments, to reflect his disallowance of certain unallowable or unsubstantiated deductions. Those adjustments affected both the denominator of the limiting fraction and the U.S. tax computed without the foreign tax credit, but those adjustments are not contested by petitioners, and that much of the overall limitation formula does not, therefore, concern us here. In addition, the Commissioner in each case reduced the taxable income from sources without the United States by subtracting from the foreign gross income reported a ratable portion of certain deductions claimed in the respective returns. Since the foreign “taxable income” is the numerator of the limiting -fraction, the Commissioner’s allocation of a portion of these deductions to such foreign “taxable income” had the effect of lowering the overall limitation and tRus the maximum allowable foreign tax credits, and it is this action which petitioners dispute.

The issues raised in each case are, except for the amounts involved, identical. Both Erich and Kurt received all but a minor portion of their foreign income in 1961 from distributions in respect of limited-partnership interests held by them in a German banking concern.5 These distributions appear to have been received by them without expense, other than that of German taxes which were withheld at the source, and without the rendition of any services on their parkin 1961. They therefore concluded that, for the purpose of computing the overall limitation on the foreign tax credit, the ''taxable income from sources without the United States1’ of each of them was equal to their respective foreign gross incomes, without any deductions. The Commissioner, however, determined that a large portion of the capital gains deductions claimed by each of them in computing the tax on their long-term capital gains related directly to distributions from the German banking concern which they treated on their returns as long-term capital gains, and he accordingly allocated and subtracted that portion from their foreign gross incomes. Iiis determination in this respect accounted for the major portion of the deficiencies, and petitioners now accept it as correct. But they argue that the Commissioner erred in his further determination that deductions claimed by both Erich and Kurt for charitable contributions, interest, State and local taxes, accounting fees, and casualty losses due to storm damage were not definitely attributable to either domestic or foreign income and were therefore allocable ratably between domestic and foreign gross income; they contend that all these deductions related solely to domestic gross income and were allocable wholly thereto, so that no part of those deductions could be used to reduce their “taxable income from sources without the United States.”

The Commissioner’s action with respect to the deductions in dispute was predicated on the command of section 862(b) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, which requires that, in determining “taxable income from sources without the United States,” there shall be deducted from foreign gross income “the expenses, losses, and other deductions properly apportioned or allocated thereto, and a ratable fart of any expenses, losses, or other deductions which cannot definitely be allocated to some item or class of gross income” (emphasis supplied). It is clear that, in determining “taxable income from sources without the United States” under these provisions, a taxpayer must thus subtract from his foreign gross income not only those deductions properly allocable to such foreign income but also a ratable share of all other deductions claimed in computing his total taxable income for purposes of determining the income tax imposed by section 1 of the 1954 Code which cannot be shown to be definitely related to his domestic income.6 If such relationship cannot be established, the allocation must be made notwithstanding the fact that the taxpayer may have paid taxes on his foreign income which did not take such allocated deductions into account. See International Standard Electric Corporation, 1 T.C. 1153, 1157-1159, affirmed and modified on another issue 144 F. 2d 487, 489 (C.A. 2), certiorari denied 323 U.S. 803; followed in South Porto Rico Sugar Co., 2 T.C. 738, 743. Cf. Missouri Pacific Railroad Co. v. United States, 392 F. 2d 592 (Ct. Cl.). Moreover, in light of the Commissioner’s determination here, the burden is upon petitioners to demonstrate that the deductions allocated between domestic and foreign gross income were in fact “definitely” related to the earning of income within the United States in the degree contemplated by the statute. Cf. De Nederlandsche Bank, 35 B.T.A. 53, 59-60.

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50 T.C. 710 (U.S. Tax Court, 1968)

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Bluebook (online)
50 T.C. 710, 1968 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 87, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/grunebaum-v-commissioner-tax-1968.