Kutz v. United States

392 F. Supp. 539, 35 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1469, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12617
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedApril 29, 1975
DocketCiv. Nos. 73-48, 73-47
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 392 F. Supp. 539 (Kutz v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kutz v. United States, 392 F. Supp. 539, 35 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1469, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12617 (M.D. Pa. 1975).

Opinion

[540]*540MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

HERMAN, District Judge.

The plaintiffs filed suit seeking the return of tax deficiencies paid under protest. The parties entered into a complete stipulation of facts. The following history of the case includes those stipulated facts upon which the court relies in making its decision.

Luther W. McCoy, Donald E. Kutz and three other persons incorporated the McCoy Electronics Company (MEC) in 1952 under the laws of Pennsylvania. McCoy held approximately one-third of the stock with each of the remaining persons owning one-sixth. In 1960 MEC and Oak Manufacturing Co. began negotiating the sale of all shares of MEC to Oak. The initial offer of $600,000 was rejected by MEC. On February 22, 1961 the parties agreed to a maximum sales price of $800,000 to be paid over a period of time. Oak agreed to pay $450,000 initially, followed by three annual payments not to total more than $350,000. The exact amount of these payments was directly tied to the net earnings of MEC in each of the three years following purchase. Based on the agreement, however, the payments could not exceed $125,000 for 1961, $125,000 for 1962 and $100,000 for 1963. It was, in effect, an installment sale with an adjustable ultimate price. The three inactive shareholders concluded that the net income provision was too risky. Instead they agreed, before the sale to Oak to each take $105,000 from the initial $450,000 payment as complete satisfaction for their shares.

In hopes of securing the maximum payments, Kutz and McCoy entered into an oral agreement on February 23, 1961 with four key employees of MEC. The agreement was reduced to writing in the Spring of 1963. It assured the employees a total maximum of $35,000 over the three years if MEC’s net income was sufficient to secure to Kutz and McCoy the maximum payments.1 The key men were to be paid after the annual installment payment from Oak, and only in proportion to the net income of MEC. During each of the three years MEC earned enough to entitle the plaintiffs to the maximum payments.

The plaintiffs made the key men payments as promised, claiming the money from Oak as a capital gain and deducting the key men payments from ordinary income. The IRS disallowed the deduction saying it should have been used instead to reduce the amount of gain. The plaintiffs paid the tax due plus interest, under protest, and filed the instant suit to recover the sum.2

The plaintiffs, the burdened parties, urge the appropriateness of the deductions based on 26 U.S.C. § 212:

“In the case of an individual, there shall be allowed as a deduction all the ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year—
(1) for the production or collection of income;
(2) for the management, conservation, or maintenance of property held for the production of income; or
(3) in connection with the determination, collection, or refund of any tax.”

Plaintiffs argue that the key man payments qualify under the “production or collection of income” subsection. Further, they rely on Treasury Regulation 1.212-1 (b) which declares that income “for the purpose of section 212 . . . is not confined to recurring income but applies as well to gains from the disposition of property.”

[541]*541In Woodward v. Commissioner, 397 U.S. 572, 574-75, 90 S.Ct. 1302, 1305, 25 L.Ed.2d 577, 581 (1970), the unanimous Court observed:

“If an expense is capital, it cannot be deducted as ‘ordinary and necessary,’ . . . under § 212.”

The issue, therefore, reduces itself, in our view, to whether or not the key man payments were capital expenses which is determinative of the availability of § 212. It was Woodward which formalized the so-called “origin” test. In sum, the test is whether the origin of the expense is the process of acquisition (or sale) of a capital asset.

The plaintiffs have argued that certain language in Woodward indicates that the origin test does not apply in all § 212 cases:

“The standard here pronounced may, like any standard, present borderline cases, in which it is difficult to determine whether the origin of particular litigation lies in the process of acquisition. . . .” 397 U.S., at 578, 90 S.Ct. at 1306, 25 L.Ed.2d, at 583.

Clearly, the applicability of the test turns on whether the expense was acquisition related, and therefore whether it is capital in nature. However, the plaintiffs have erroneously attempted to extrapolate that notion into an argument that the origin test only applies in certain capital expenditure cases. We find nothing in Woodward which in any way exempts from the capital expense category any expense arising out of the acquisition process. The only “borderline” is the factual determination of whether the expense was acquisition related. If so, then the expense is a capital one and § 212 is unavailable. In short, the origin test is applied uniformly, but whether the facts of a case satisfy that test of course, determines if the “border” is crossed.

The argument of the plaintiffs seems to be that acquisition of a capital asset is not covered by Woodward if the agreement is consummated prior to incurring the deducted expenses. In effect, the plaintiffs attempt to argue that an expense is a capital expenditure only if it satisfies a “but for” test. That is, but for the expenditure in dispute, the acquisition would not have been consummated. So arguing, the plaintiffs note that the agreement of sale to Oak was signed prior to the creation of the key man agreements.

The consummation test offered by the plaintiffs ignores that portion of the Woodward companion case, United States v. Hilton Hotels Corp., 397 U.S. 580, 583-84, 90 S.Ct. 1307, 1309, 25 L.Ed.2d 585, 588 (1970), which states:

“Noting that ‘the proceeding was not necessary to the consummation of the merger nor did it function primarily to permit the acquisition of the shares,’ the [circuit] court found that the ‘paramount purpose of the appraisal proceeding was to determine the fair value of the shares. . . . ’
* * * * * *
“This is a distinction without a difference. . . . whether title passes before or after che price is determined. Determination and payment of a price is no less an element of an acquisition by purchase than is the passage of title to the property. In both Woodward and this case, the expenses were incurred in determining what that price should be . .”

Indeed, it was in Woodward wherein the Court declared that “where property is acquired by purchase, nothing is more clearly part of the process of acquisition than the establishment of a purchase price.” 397 U.S., at 579, 90 S.Ct. at 1307, 25 L.Ed.2d, at 583. Two points bear note at this juncture. First, the consummation date upon which the plaintiffs put great emphasis is not truly a final date for all purposes. That is, the date Oak agreed to buy and the plaintiffs agreed to sell did not include a final fixing of the sale price.

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Related

McKeague v. United States
12 Cl. Ct. 671 (Court of Claims, 1987)
Blakeslee v. Commissioner
1977 T.C. Memo. 371 (U.S. Tax Court, 1977)

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Bluebook (online)
392 F. Supp. 539, 35 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1469, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12617, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kutz-v-united-states-pamd-1975.