Mack v. United States

160 F. Supp. 421, 1 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 2127, 1958 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2508
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Wisconsin
DecidedMarch 26, 1958
DocketCiv. A. No. 5672
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 160 F. Supp. 421 (Mack v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mack v. United States, 160 F. Supp. 421, 1 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 2127, 1958 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2508 (E.D. Wis. 1958).

Opinion

TEHAN, Chief Judge.

This is a civil action for refund of federal estate taxes paid to the United States on the net estate of Rudolph Mack, who died intestate on September 25, 1946. The plaintiffs in this action are the only heirs at law of the decedent.

In July, 1947, the administrators of decedent’s estate, pursuant to notice and demand from the Collector of Internal Revenue in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, paid an estate tax of $19,467.08. As a result of a subsequent examination by an Internal Revenue agent, a tax deficiency of $3,508.91 in decedent’s estate tax was reported. This deficiency arose through the addition by the Internal Revenue agent of the amount of $12,534.81 to the value of the estate, thereby increasing the net estate by that amount. The plaintiffs protested in part the proposed tax adjustment, but paid to the Collector the reported deficiency with interest, whereupon they filed a claim for the refund of the sum of $1,938.07 with interest, which was the part of the deficiency in the tax to which the plaintiffs had filed the notice of protest. Thereafter, notice was given of the disallowance of the claim for refund in full.

While several issues were originally raised by the pleadings, there remained at the time of the trial a single question of the deductibility of local real estate taxes for the year 1946 amounting to $4,725.27, paid by the decedent, or by him and his wife as joint tenants.

Pertinent to this remaining issue it has been stipulated by the parties that Wisconsin local real estate taxes for the year 1946 upon Wisconsin real estate in which Rudolph Mack died owning an interest, were extended on the tax rolls and that these tax rolls were delivered to the local treasurers with their warrants for collection on the following dates:

[423]*423Thus it appears that each of the tax rolls, together with the warrants, was delivered to the respective treasurers subsequent to September 25, 1946, the date of decedent’s death.

It has also been stipulated by the parties that in a probate proceeding before the County Court of Waukesha County in the State of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Department of Taxation advised the Public Administrator for said County that the value of the interests of the decedent in Wisconsin real estate at the time of his death would be considered by the State Department of Taxation as diminished by the amount of the lien upon said real estate for the payment of Wisconsin real estate taxes for 1946, attributable to his interest.

The single question for this Court is: Are the 1946 local Wisconsin real estate taxes imposed on decedent’s real estate deductible under Section 812(b) (4) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939 in determining his net estate ?

The pertinent statute reads:

“§ 812. Net estate.
“For the purpose of the tax the value of the net estate shall be determined, in the case of a citizen or resident of the United States by deducting from the value of the gross estate—
******
“(b) Expenses, losses, indebtedness, and taxes.
“Such amounts— ******
“(4) for unpaid mortgages upon, or any indebtedness in respect to, property where the value of decedent’s interest therein, undiminished by such mortgage or indebtedness, is included in the value of the gross estate,
as are allowed by the laws of the jurisdiction, whether within or without the United States, under which the estate is being administered, but not including any income taxes upon income received after the death of the decedent, or property taxes not accrued, before his death, or any estate, succession, legacy, or inheritance taxes. * * * ” 26 U.S.C.1952 ed. § 812. (Italics ours.)

The key words in this statute for the purposes of this case are “property taxes not accrued before his death.” It is the plaintiffs’ contention that the said real estate taxes herein accrued by operation of law on May 1, 1946, by virtue of Section 70.01 of the 1945 Wisconsin Statutes, W.S.A.

We view the question to be one of a determination of the time when Wisconsin real estate taxes accrue within the meaning of Wisconsin law. We read the language of Section 812(b) (4) to wit: “as are allowed by the laws of the jurisdiction, whether within or without the United States,” as a directive to make a determination of the time of accrual on the basis of a particular state’s statutory and decisional law. Other decisional law we have reviewed supports this interpretation. It appears that resort is had to the pertinent state law when the issue of “accrual” arises in the administration of the federal internal revenue laws. See e. g., M. P. Klyce, Administrator, 1940, 41 B.T.A. 194 (issue of date of accrual of Alabama real estate tax); Lowell H. Chamberlain, 1941, 43 B.T.A. 259 (“The question of when State property taxes accrue necessarily involves a reference to the law of the particular State involved and the decisions of its courts. Hence, it is impossible to lay down a general rule applicable to the accrual date of taxes in each and every State.” G.C.M. 21373, 1939-2 C.B. 82, 83.) As a matter of fact the widespread variance in the laws of the respective forty-eight state jurisdictions would seem to render it impossible to lay down a general rule applicable to the accrual date of taxes in each and every such jurisdiction.

The status of Wisconsin law and the basic contentions of the parties can, we believe, be brought into sharper focus by reviewing the reactions of the General Counsel of the Bureau of Internal Rev[424]*424enue to the relevant statutory changes and decisional laws during the past 25 to 30 years.

It appears from a memorandum of the General Counsel published in 1932 that in the case of real estate under the Wisconsin statutes the ownership of property on the date as to which such property is actually valued for assessment purposes is the “event” which determines the liability for the tax. I.T. 2633, XI-2 C.B. 77, 79 (1932). Accordingly the assessment involved having been made prior to August 1, 1929, the .tax had accrued prior to the purchase of .the property on August 1, 1929.

This ruling that the date of assessment was the significant “event” was reasserted in a 1933 memorandum which incidentally also recognized and gave effect to a recently amended Wisconsin statute providing for assessment of all real estate and personal property on May 1st of each year. I.T. 2694, XII-1 C.B. 107 (1933). It is therefore also relevant here to observe that as a consequence the General Counsel held that under Wisconsin law property taxes accrued as of that date May 1st, the date of assessment.

The General Counsel adhered to this position in the litigation before the United States Board of Tax Appeals and thereafter in the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the case of Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Patrick Cudahy Family Co., 7 Cir., 1939, 102 F.2d 930.

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160 F. Supp. 421, 1 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 2127, 1958 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2508, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mack-v-united-states-wied-1958.