I. W. Thompson, Individually and Wife, Charlie Thompson v. United States

332 F.2d 657, 13 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1558, 1964 U.S. App. LEXIS 5248
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedMay 27, 1964
Docket20214
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 332 F.2d 657 (I. W. Thompson, Individually and Wife, Charlie Thompson v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
I. W. Thompson, Individually and Wife, Charlie Thompson v. United States, 332 F.2d 657, 13 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1558, 1964 U.S. App. LEXIS 5248 (5th Cir. 1964).

Opinions

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge.

I. W. Thompson, his wife Charlie Thompson, and I. W. Thompson, as Trustee for Selected Minority Funds1 sued in the District Court to recover income taxes, penalties, and interest in the aggregate amount of $171,665.65, assessed against the Thompsons for the years 1952-1956 and collected by levy on the bank accounts of the Thompsons and Selected.2

On September 19, 1949, I. W. Thompson, referring to himself as Donor and naming himself as Trustee, executed an instrument establishing Selected. Subsequently the Thompsons executed a deed conveying to I. W. Thompson, Trustee, 9/10ths of all of the oil, gas and other minerals in and under approximately 86 acres of land in the Van Field in Van Zandt County, Texas. After June 1, 1951, the effective date of that deed, the oil and gas royalties attributable to the mineral interest conveyed were paid to Selected. Because the Thompsons did not consider the royalty income paid to Selected to be income accruing to them, they did not include this income in the returns filed by them for the years 1952-1956. The deficiencies assessed resulted from the determination by the Internal Revenue Service that the royalty amounts paid to Selected were taxable to the Thompsons.3

The Government challenged the jurisdiction of the District Court to entertain the refund suit involving the years 1953, 1955, and 1956 on the ground that the Thompsons had filed no claims for refund for those years. Acknowledging that claims had been filed for the years 1952 and 1954, the Government nevertheless, but unsuccessfully, challenged the jurisdiction of the District Court to entertain the refund suit for these years on the theory that the claims failed adequately to set forth the grounds relied on for relief. The Government further urged various substantive theories under which the income paid to Selected was taxable to the Thompsons. The District Court decided that Selected is a trust organized and operated exclusively for charitable or educational purposes and thus exempt from the payment of income taxes under Int.Rev. Code of 1954, § 501, 26 U.S.C.A. § 501. It rejected the Government’s contentions that the royalty income was taxable to the Thompsons and that the claims were insufficient and thus rendered judgment for them for the years 1952 and 1954.4 The Court dismissed the refund suit for the years 1953, 1955, and 1956, however, holding that the Thompsons had not filed refund claims for those years. The sole question here presented is the correctness of this dismissal.

[659]*659Clearly the Code5 and the Regulations 6 require the filing of a refund claim prior to the institution of a civil suit for refund. Neither the Thompsons nor Selected dispute this controlling principle of law; the difference— and therein the difficulty of this case— lies in its proper application.

The position of the Government may be simply stated. It is that, assuming that the “claims” in all other respects complied with the Code and Regulations,7 those for the years here in question are fatally defective because on the line captioned “Name of taxpayer or purchaser of stamps” on Form 843 there appeared “Selected Minority Fund” rather than “I. W. Thompson and wife, Charlie Thompson.” The Government also urges that the statement of the ground upon which the refund was claimed was insufficient. We reject both contentions and reverse.

I.

The filing of a claim or demand as a prerequisite to a suit to recover taxes paid is a familiar provision of the revenue laws, compliance with which may be insisted upon by the Government. United States v. Felt & Tarrant Mfg. Co., 1931, 283 U.S. 269, 51 S.Ct. 376, 75 L.Ed. 1025. The Supreme Court has said that “[o]ne object of such requirements is to advise the appropriate officials of the demands or [660]*660claims intended to be asserted, so as to insure an orderly administration of the revenue * * * ” Id. at 283 U.S. 272, 51 S.Ct. 377. We have said more specifically that the purpose of the rule is to permit the Commissioner to correct claimed errors in the first instance and, if disagreement persists, to limit the litigation to the issues which have been reexamined by the Commissioner and which he is prepared to defend. Car-mack v. Scofield, 5 Cir., 1953, 201 F.2d 360, 362; Snead v. Elmore, 5 Cir., 1932, 59 F.2d 312, 314.

A brief consideration of the peculiar facts of this case demonstrates that these important policies are not undermined by our decision for the Thompsons.

The 5 claims in issue in the Court below were transmitted in one bundle to the proper district director. Each claim showed the year for which it was made, the amount claimed as a refund, and the date the amount claimed as a refund was paid. The claims for the years 1952 and 1954 showed “I. W. and/or Charlie Thompson” as taxpayer and were signed by I. W. Thompson and Charlie Thompson. The claims for the years 1953, 1955, and 1956 showed “Selected Minority Fund” as taxpayer and were signed “Selected Minority Fund by I. W. Thompson, Trustee.” But with the receipt on March 27, 1959 of this bundle of refund claims, the district director had full and complete information. The bundle of claims themselves presented a full picture of the events which had transpired with relation to the Thompsons for the years 1952-1956.8 It is clear from the claims that each of the 5 consecutive years involves a dispute with I. W. Thompson. The amount shown on each claim as having been assessed is the amount shown on the notice of levy and receipt for payment of taxes for the corresponding year. Likewise the date of payment shown on each claim is the date on which the bank issued its cashier’s check in payment of the levy for the corresponding year. The same ground was set forth in the claims for the years 1952 and 1954, and it closely corresponded to the ground set forth in the claims for the years 1953, 1955, and 1956.9 More than that, the [661]*661Director had with these claims his own files which included them. Included were the Director’s file of the Thompsons’ tax returns for the years 1952-1956. That also included the Internal Revenue Agent’s report covering his examination and investigation of those returns, and a copy of the essential excerpts from the trust instrument by which Selected was created. From these documents the Director knew the essential provisions of the trust, that the Thompsons had not included in their returns for those years the royalty income paid to Selected on the theory that it was tax-exempt income of Selected rather than income to them, and that the deficiencies assessed for each of those years came about from the determination of the Service that the income was taxable to the Thompsons rather than to Selected on the theory that Selected was not a valid educational trust. Thus the record reflects that in the light of the facts before and then known to the Director at the time the claims were received, he was sufficiently advised as to the identity of the taxpayer seeking refund for taxes wrongfully assessed and collected for the years 1953, 1955, and 1956.

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Bluebook (online)
332 F.2d 657, 13 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1558, 1964 U.S. App. LEXIS 5248, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/i-w-thompson-individually-and-wife-charlie-thompson-v-united-states-ca5-1964.