Kelsey v. Commissioner

14 T.C. 107, 1950 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 289
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedJanuary 30, 1950
DocketDocket No. 16335
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 14 T.C. 107 (Kelsey 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
Kelsey v. Commissioner, 14 T.C. 107, 1950 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 289 (tax 1950).

Opinion

OPINION.

Tyson, Judge:

Respondent has determined against petitioner an income and victory tax deficiency of $332.71 for the calendar year 1943, only a portion of which is in controversy.

The question presented is whether respondent erred in disallowing a deduction by petitioner of New York State tax imposed upon him as a nonresident of that state in the computation of his victory tax net income.

The proceeding was submitted on the pleadings and a stipulation of facts. The facts stipulated are so found and are included herein by reference.

Petitioner is an attorney, engaged in the practice of law in New York City, but at all times pertinent here he was a resident of New Jersey. His income tax return for the calendar year 1943 was filed with the collector of internal revenue for the fifth district of New Jersey. Petitioner kept his accounts and filed his income tax return for 1943 on the cash receipts and disbursements basis.

During 1942 petitioner incurred liability for New York State tax in the amount of $2,896.94 and paid this tax in 1943. The tax was imposed with respect to petitioner’s distributive share of the net income of the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Rartlétt, a partnership, totaling $62,743.12 in 1942, and his fees of $220 received as a director of Brooks Brothers in that year. In 1943 petitioner received $62,-443.30 as his distributive share of the net income of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and $280 as his fees as a director of Brooks Brothers, thereby incurring liability for Newr York State income tax in the amount of $2,893.05, which he paid in 1944. In 1942 and 1943 petitioner received no other income from sources within the State of New York.

Petitioner contends that the New York State tax of $2,896.94 incurred in the year 1942 but paid in 1943 should be deductible from gross income in computing his victory tax net income for the taxable year 1943. In the alternative, he contends that the New York State tax of $2,893.05 incurred in the year 1943 but paid in 1944 should be deductible in 1943.

It is respondent’s position that the tax is a state personal income tax and under no circumstances is deductible in the computation of victory tax net income, citing Anna Harris, 10 T. C. 818.1 Petitioner argues that the Haa-ris decision is not determinative here because that decision involved an income tax on a resident of the state, whereas the New York tax here involved is levied upon him as a nonresident and solely upon his income derived from business carried on within that state; and that the New York tax is thus a tax paid or incurred in connection with the carrying on of a trade or business within the meaning of section 451 (a) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code.2

As first enacted in 1919 the New York State income tax statutes 4 provided personal exemptions for residents that were not extended to nonresidents. This denial of personal exemptions to nonresidents was held to be a discrimination against them by the United States Supreme Court in Travis v. Yale & Towne Mfg. Co., 252 U. S. 60, 77-82 (1919), and, as such, unconstitutional. The constitutionality of the other features of the act, in taxing nonresidents only in respect to income derived from business carried on within the state and in confining deductions of expenses, losses, etc., to such as were connected with income arising from sources within the state, was upheld under authority of Shaffer v. Garter, 252 U. S. 37 (1919), decided the same day and involving a similar state income tax statute -enacted by Oklahoma.

Following the Yale & Towne Mfg. Co. case, the New York Legislature amended its income tax statute to grant nonresidents the same exemptions as residents.5 Constitutionality of the act as amended was upheld by the New York Court of Appeals in People ex. rel. Stafford v. Travis, 231 N. Y. 339; 132 N. E. 109 (1921). In that case it was said, inter alia:

The tax imposed by the act of 1919 upon and with respect to the net income from every business carried on in this state by persons not residents of the state is not for the privilege of carrying on a legitimate business within the boundaries of the state, for that is a privilege granted by the federal Constitution. It is the imposition of a tax upon business done by a nonresident in this state no greater in any respect than the tax imposed upon the conduct of such a business by a resident of the state. It is measured by a percentage on the net income from the business. Such a tax is just and constitutional. * * *

We have carefully examined the provisions of the New York State income tax statutes 6 as in effect for the tax years here involved, and the conclusion is inescapable that the tax is designed to, and does, tax the personal income of residents and nonresidents of that state within constitutional bounds. Those statutes are in pertinent parts substantially identical with those considered in the People ex. rel. Stafford v. Travis case, supra, and some are set forth in a footnote below.7

That the statutes levied a tax upon personal income (in the case of nonresidents restricted to income derived from property owned or business done within the state) is, we think, clearly shown as follows: The heading of article 16, supra, in which the tax is imposed is “Taxes Upon and With Respect to Personal Incomes”; section 851, supra, imposes a tax “upon every resident of the state, * * * with respect to his entire net income * * *” and imposes “A like tax * * * upon * * * the entire net income * * * from all property owned and from every business, * * * carried on in this state by natural persons not residents of the state”; section 351-a, supra, under the heading “Reimposition of tax against nonresidents,” reimposes the same tax against nonresidents as that imposed by section 351; and section 359-3, supra, defines gross income of nonresidents to include “only the gross income from sources within the state * * *”; section 362 (which is not set out in the footnotes) provides for the allowance with respect to his net income to any taxpayer (including nonresidents of New York) of personal exemptions and exemptions for dependents in specific amounts without reference to the amount of business done in the state or of the amount of income derived therefrom; and section 363 (also not set out in the footnotes) provides that whenever a nonresident of New. York has become liable for income tax to the state or country where he resides upon income derived from sources within New York subject to the New York tax he will be credited on New York tax payable by him with suqh proportion of the tax payable by him to the state where he resides as his income subject to taxation by New York bears to his entire income upon which the tax so payable to such other state or country was imposed; if reciprocal credit is granted New York residents.

All the above statutory provisions characterize the incidence of the tax as falling upon the personal income of the nonresident — to the extent that such income is derived from all property owned and business operated by him in the State of New York.

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Related

Alexander v. Commissioner
25 T.C. 600 (U.S. Tax Court, 1955)
Kelsey v. Commissioner
14 T.C. 107 (U.S. Tax Court, 1950)

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Bluebook (online)
14 T.C. 107, 1950 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 289, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kelsey-v-commissioner-tax-1950.