Herrera v. Commissioner

1979 T.C. Memo. 345, 38 T.C.M. 1354, 1979 Tax Ct. Memo LEXIS 177
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedAugust 30, 1979
DocketDocket No. 3622-76.
StatusUnpublished

This text of 1979 T.C. Memo. 345 (Herrera 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
Herrera v. Commissioner, 1979 T.C. Memo. 345, 38 T.C.M. 1354, 1979 Tax Ct. Memo LEXIS 177 (tax 1979).

Opinion

HENRY RICHARD HERRERA, Petitioner v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent
Herrera v. Commissioner
Docket No. 3622-76.
United States Tax Court
T.C. Memo 1979-345; 1979 Tax Ct. Memo LEXIS 177; 38 T.C.M. (CCH) 1354; T.C.M. (RIA) 79345;
August 30, 1979, Filed

*177 Petitioner was a resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital and received a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. The grant payments represented compensation for present employment services that were subject to direction of the grantor. Held, the payments are not excludable scholarship or fellowship grants. Section 117 (a), I.R.C. 1954 .

Henry Richard Herrera, Pro se.
William E. Bonano and Peter D. Bakutes, for respondent.

IRWIN

MEMORANDUM*178 FINDINGS OF FACT AND OPINION

IRWIN, Judge: Respondent determined deficiencies in petitioner's income tax in the amounts of $743.04 and $962.30 for the taxable years 1973 and 1974, respectively. Concessions having been made, the only issue remaining for our decision is whether petitioner is entitled to exclude from gross income, pursuant to section 1171, amounts paid him by Johns Hopkins University as a scholarship or fellowship grant.

FINDINGS OF FACT

Some of the facts have been stipulated. The findings of fact, together with the exhibits attached thereto, are incorporated herein by this reference.

Petitioner, Henry Herrera, filed his income tax returns for the taxable years 1973 and 1974 with the Internal Revenue Service Center at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the time he filed his petition herein, petitioner resided in Baltimore, Maryland.

Petitioner received his M.D. degree in 1970 from Creighton University. During the next year, he was an intern at Baltimore City Hospital and from 1971 to July 1973, he was employed by the United States Public*179 Health Service in Washington, D.C. In July 1973, petitioner was admitted to a three-year psychiatric residency program at the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic, a clinical department of Johns Hopkins Hospital (hereafter Hospital).

The Hospital is a private teaching hospital allied with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (hereafter University) and provides psychiatric training through its residency program, consisting of a structured, supervised sequence of increasing patient care responsibility. The University administers the educational programs of the Medical School, registers its students, and disburses stipends.

Petitioner received $5,250 during the second half of 1973, $11,200 in 1974, and approximately $13,000 in 1975 from the University while a resident at the Hospital. This amount was not determined on the basis of financial need. Ninety percent of the amount paid by the University to the Hospital residents comes from fees earned by physicians employed by the Hospital, who are not interns or residents, which fees are remitted by the Hospital to the University. Of the amount paid to petitioner by the University, however, the source of $3,600 in 1973 and*180 $3,800 in 1974 was a National Institute of Mental Health (hereafter NIMH) block grant awarded the University in July 1970 and renewed annually through June 30, 1975. These grants were awarded to the University in order to increase the number of psychiatrists and improve the quality of psychiatric training programs. The University did not withhold Federal income taxes or FICA tax from amounts paid to petitioner. Petitioner was not aware of the NIMH grant until he began his residency, however, and expected the amount of funds he was to receive from the University to have remained the same regardless of the source of the funds.

The University also contributed part of petitioner's health insurance premiums, and the Hospital provided him with malpractice insurance. Petitioner was also entitled to free prescriptions and medical care through the University health service, although he was not entitled to use the health service which the Hospital maintained separately to treat its employees.

The Hospital is a separate corporation governed by it own Board of Trustees and has an endowment independent from the University and its School of Medicine. The two institutions are closely related, *181 however, and the activities of the Hospital and the School of Medicine are coordinated by the Johns Hopkins Medical Institution's Council, composed of the president of the University (who is also president of the Hospital), he deans of the schools of medicine, hygiene, and public health, and the executive vice president and director of the Hospital. All members of the Hospital house staff are registered as post doctoral students at the School of Medicine and are appointed as fellows of the University. In addition, the head of each clinical department of the Hospital is also the professor and director of the corresponding academic department in the School of Medicine; the School of Medicine and the Hospital share the salary expenses of these dual department heads.

During his residency at the Hospital, petitioner was responsible for a minimum caseload of at least two patients during his first year and five patients during his second year, although a higher caseload was expected to be carried. The average yearly caseload carried by the residents was 13, 17, and 15 for first, second, and third-year residents, respectively, and the average number of patients treated by the residents*182

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Bluebook (online)
1979 T.C. Memo. 345, 38 T.C.M. 1354, 1979 Tax Ct. Memo LEXIS 177, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/herrera-v-commissioner-tax-1979.