Morriss Realty Co. v. Commissioner

23 B.T.A. 1076, 1931 BTA LEXIS 1774
CourtUnited States Board of Tax Appeals
DecidedJuly 10, 1931
DocketDocket Nos. 41023, 41024, 45863, 45864.
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 23 B.T.A. 1076 (Morriss Realty Co. v. Commissioner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Board of Tax Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Morriss Realty Co. v. Commissioner, 23 B.T.A. 1076, 1931 BTA LEXIS 1774 (bta 1931).

Opinion

[1082]*1082OPINION.

Matthews:

Since no evidence was introduced with respect to the minor issues raised by petitioners, we may regard them as abandoned.

The sole issue, and the only one argued by counsel, is whether the two trusts are taxable as trusts or as associations under the identical provision of the Revenue Acts of 1924 and 1926:

Sec. 2. (a) When used in this Act—
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[1083]*1083(2) The term “ corporation ” includes associations, joint-stock companies, and insurance companies.

The petitioner attempts to raise a question upon section 704 of the Revenue Act of 1928, which provides in substance that a taxpayer who has filed his return as a trust for any taxable year prior to the taxable year 1925 shall be taxable as a trust and not as a corporation, if it was to be considered a trust under the Treasury regulations in force at the time the return was made, or under any ruling of the Commissioner interpreting the revenue acts. Subsection (b) of the same section deals with the situation of a single trustee and may be disregarded, therefore, in this connection. This provision was intended to give a taxpayer, which might be either a trust or an association according to the test applied by the Commissioner pursuant to decisions of the Supreme Court, the benefit of the Supreme Court’s earlier “ control test,” of Crocker v. Malley, 249 U. S. 223. With respect to the present petitioners, however, this issue is disposed of for the reason that the 1924 returns were filed after the effective date of the new regulations which were formulated to incorporate the new tests set out by the Supreme Court in Hecht v. Malley, 265 U. S. 144. The Board discussed this question at length in the case of Commercial Trust Co., 18 B. T. A. 1248, and adopted the Commissioner’s ruling fixing the effective date of the new regulations and rulings at August 11, 1924.

The distinction between trust and association has been considered by this Board in many cases, and the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in the Crocker and Hecht cases and Burk-Waggoner Oil Association v. Hopkins, 269 U. S. 110, construed. An historical review of these principles appears in Durfee Mineral Co., 7 B. T. A. 231. More than a brief reference to them here is unnecessary. The Crocker case involved the Federal income tax and the court reached the conclusion that the trust was not an association, after applying the test of control of the trustees by the beneficiaries. In the Hecht case this criterion was apparently subordinated, for the court said:

The trusts are to be deemed associations within the meaning of the Act of 1918, this being true independently of the large measure of control exercised by the beneficiaries in the Hecht and Haymarket cases, which much exceeds that exercised by the beneficiaries under the Wachusett Trust.

It further stated that it did not believe such an organization “ should be exempt from the excise tax [capital stock tax] on the privilege of carrying on their business merely because such a slight measure of control may be vested in the beneficiaries, that they might be deemed strict trusts within the rule established by the Massachusetts courts.” The court spoke of the trustees being “ associated together in much the same manner as the directors in a corporation for the purpose of carrying on business enterprises.”

[1084]*1084All the inferior Federal Court and Board cases that have arisen since the Hecht case have tended to emphasize the test of business purposes. It would seem possible to reconcile the Crocker case with the Hecht case by regarding the control test applied in the former as a necessary ingredient of the quasi-corporate structure test which is touched upon in the Hecht case. The next important case decided by the Supreme Court was the Burh-Waggoner case in which the court held that an organization, although a partnership under Texas law, was nevertheless to be treated as an association under Federal income-tax law and not as “ an ordinary partnership.” By reason of its quasi-corporate form and “ because of this resemblance in form and effectiveness, these business organizations are subjected by the Act to these taxes as corporations.” This case again involved the income tax, but no reference is made in the opinion to the Crocker case.

We therefore have a triple test: (1) Business purpose; (2) business operations; and (3) quasi-corporate structure. There has unavoidably been some variation in emphasis, depending upon the particular facts of the case, put by various courts upon these tests.

Trust No. 1.

When we come to the application of. these principles to the facts of the first trust in the instant case, we find that Trust No. 1 had three trustees, two of them, Vernon and A. W., Jr., being sons of the settlor, and Ralph, his nephew. The sole beneficiary was A. W. Morriss himself the settlor, who had a right to dispose of his interests by will, or other instrument during his life. After the beneficiary’s death, his widow, Julia, and his four children, H. A., Edith, Vernon and A. W., Jr., became beneficiaries. Under the original instrument of April 9, 1907, the term of the trust was ten years and at the end of the term any property still unliquidated was to be sold at public auction. Any of the two trustees might subdivide, convey land, and borrow money, etc. A trustee might appoint his successor by instrument or will and if no such appointment was made, the judge of the local court was to do so on application of the beneficiaries. The trustees must resign on, request.of five-eighths of the beneficial interest. The proceeds of the liquidation of the trust property were to go to the beneficiary during his life and on the termination of the trust the balance unliquidated also. His interest was assignable in whole or in part during his life and at his death by will. Neither the beneficiary nor his assigns, however, had any right to partition the property; his right was to the proceeds only; and no beneficiary, if an assignment should be made, had any right to encumber any part of the holdings or to sell any part without first offering it to the [1085]*1085other beneficiaries. The second trust instrument of December 26, 1916, extended the trust to December 17, 1930. The third trust instrument of December 6, 1918, substituted Herbert S., brother of the settlor, for the former’s son, Ralph, who had died in the meantime; and by the same instrument the corpus of the trust was increased by a further conveyance made by the beneficiary and his wife to the trustees. The fourth and last trust instrument of April 6,1922, conferred additional power on the trustees to purchase land and other property and ratified prior acquisitions and sales of the property by the trustees. No land was bought, however, after A. W. Morriss’s death in November, 1923.

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Morriss Realty Co. v. Commissioner
23 B.T.A. 1076 (Board of Tax Appeals, 1931)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
23 B.T.A. 1076, 1931 BTA LEXIS 1774, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/morriss-realty-co-v-commissioner-bta-1931.