Hickok v. Commissioner

32 T.C. 80, 1959 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 195
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedApril 13, 1959
DocketDocket Nos. 63224, 63255, 63256
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 32 T.C. 80 (Hickok 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
Hickok v. Commissioner, 32 T.C. 80, 1959 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 195 (tax 1959).

Opinion

Mulronet, Judge:

The respondent determined the following deficiencies in the petitioners’ income tax:

Docket No. Petitioner Year Deficiency

63224 63255 63256 Alan O. and Ann T. Hickok_ Eaymond T. and Sally Hickok_ H. Justine Hickok_ 1953 1953 1953 1954 $8,441.44 8,437.62 10,798.71 214.23

The issue in these consolidated cases is whether the exchange by petitioners of their stock in the Hickok Manufacturing Co., Inc., for 20-year 6 per cent debenture bonds of the same corporation qualifies as a nontaxable exchange under sections 112 (b) (3) and 112 (g) (1) (E) of the Internal Eevenue Code of 1939.

FINDINGS OK FACT.

Some of the facts have been stipulated and they are so found.

Alan O. and Ann T. Hickok, husband and wife, are residents of Penfield, New York; Eaymond T. and Sally Hickok, husband and wife, are residents of Eochester, New York; and H. Justine Hickok is a resident of Eochester, New York. The petitioners in these dockets filed their income tax returns for the years here involved with the district director of internal revenue at Buffalo, New York. Petitioners in Docket Nos. 63224 and 63255 filed joint returns for the year 1953.

Hickok Manufacturing Co. Inc., hereinafter sometimes called the Hickok Company, was organized under the laws of the State of New York in 191T, with its office and principal place of business in Eochester, New York. In that same year, S. Eae Hickok transferred to the Hickok Manufacturing Co., Inc., the business of manufacturing a variety of belts, buckles, and similar articles in return for the issuance of 939 shares of the corporation’s capital stock. The total authorized capital stock at the time of incorporation was 1,500 shares of $100 par value. In 1920 the number of authorized shares was increased to 4,000 shares of common stock, with a par value of $100 and 2,000 shares of preferred stock with a par value of $100. In 1925 the number of authorized shares of common stock was increased to 6,000 shares, with a par value of $100.

S. Eae Hickok died on December 10, 1945, and control of the corporation passed to Lincoln Eochester Trust Company, Alan O. Hickok, and Eaymond T. Hickok as executors of the estate of S. Eae Hickok. Alan and Eaymond are sons of the decedent. Upon their father’s death Eaymond became president of the corporation and Alan, vice president.

The minutes of a special meeting of the board of directors, held on January 11, 1946, state that Eaymond Hickok “outlined the idea of declaring a dividend on the outstanding common stock of the Company. * * * He also said that the Company was considering the question of going through recapitalization, and the general opinion of brokers and financial men was that if we [the company] were paying a dividend on our [its] stock it would make the possibility of public sale more in order.” The minutes also show that after a general discussion, a motion for a 5 per cent per year dividend was adopted. On April 28, 1947, at a special meeting of the board of directors, the previously authorized capital stock was changed to 521,400 shares of common stock with a par value of $1 per share. Prior to the last date, all of the preferred stock had been retired and eliminated. Thereafter the estate of S. Eae Hickok sold shares of common stock to the Wertheim group of New York, the Bonbright group of Eochester, and to D. S. Eutty and his wife.

Disagreements arose between the Hickok Company’s board of directors and the minority groups with respect to management policies. The advertising policy of the Hickok Company, which had been developed in conjunction with an outside advertising agency, had achieved a very high rating from a private research organization on, the basis of interviews with magazine readers. Yet a member of the Wertheim group disparaged such advertising policy as very poor and suggested that the Hickok Company consider cutting out advertising in order to show a short-term profit for the company. The Wertheim group was critical of the salaries paid by the Hickok Company and, in April 1951, demanded from the company a list of all salaries paid to company officers and directors. At a board of directors meeting and at the annual stockholders meeting, both held in April 1951, the Wertheim group was critical of the company’s relations with the Lincoln Eochester Trust Company on the ground that the bank was “straddling the fence three ways; as co-executor of the Estate, loaning money to the Estate, and granting a line of credit to the Corporation.” At the annual meeting of stockholders of the Hickok Company in April 1951, there were represented a total of 491,848 shares out of a total of 521,400 shares issued and outstanding. Philip PI. Gerner of Bonbright Company held proxies for 100,265 shares and George J. Skivington, connected with the Wertheim group, held proxies for 2,812 shares. These two representatives of minority groups of stockholders voted in the negative when the motion was presented to the meeting that all acts and transactions of the officers and directors during the preceding year be approved. At the stockholders meeting of April 1951, the Wertheim group requested the presence of a court stenographer and made it apparent that they were searching for grounds to support a minority suit against the Hickok Company.

As a result of this hostility from the dissident minority groups, and as a result of a great deal of pressure from them, the Hickok Company agreed to employ a chief financial officer picked by the Wertheim group. This officer, George Cain, was employed by the Hickok Company for approximately iy2 years. He represented the minority group primarily, and he was repeatedly critical of the action of the officers and the management of the Hickok Company. He personally managed the financial division of the company as well as the “Lyle Avenue shipping operation and tabulating division.” He discussed with the Hickok Company’s officers at various times the company’s selling policies, coordination of production to sales, and advertising policies, and on the whole he was critical with all of these policies.

In order to eliminate these dissident minority groups, the management of the Hickok Company began to explore plans of reorganizations. At the regular meeting of the board of directors held on February 25, 1952, the company attorney submitted his report “of his investigation of the Federal Income Tax angles that might develop in a proposed reorganization of this Company’s capital stock structure.” The minutes show that after some discussion of the subject “it was felt that a subordinated debenture bond issue rather than a preferred stock would be the most desirable for all concerned.” It was suggested by one of the directors that this proposal should be cleared with the Lincoln Eochester Trust Company because it held a block of the Hickok Company’s common stock as collateral on a loan to the Hickok estate, and its consent would be necessary if this common stock were to be subordinated to a new bond issue. Then the attorney for the Hickok Company and Gerner, representing the Bonbright interests, were authorized to meet in New York with the Wertheim group and “get their approval of the plan.”

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Hickok v. Commissioner
32 T.C. 80 (U.S. Tax Court, 1959)

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Bluebook (online)
32 T.C. 80, 1959 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 195, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hickok-v-commissioner-tax-1959.