Post v. Commissioner

26 T.C. 1055, 1956 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 92
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedSeptember 17, 1956
DocketDocket No. 54184
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 26 T.C. 1055 (Post 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
Post v. Commissioner, 26 T.C. 1055, 1956 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 92 (tax 1956).

Opinion

OPINION.

Bice, Judge:

This proceeding involves the following deficiencies in income tax:

Year Deficiency
1945_$542.19
1946- 983.52
1947- 501.74

The issues to be decided are: (1) The proper basis for computing the amount of loss sustained on the sale of property acquired from an inter vivos trust; and (2) whether the loss sustained was a capital or an ordinary loss.

All of the facts were stipulated, are so found, and are incorporated herein by this reference.

Petitioner is a resident of Huntington, New York, and .filed her returns for the years 1945 and 1946 with the former collector of internal revenue for the first district of New York. She filed her return for the year 1947 with the former collector of internal revenue for the third district of New York.

On November 28, 1928, Henry K. S. Williams transferred certain real property known as 18 Beaver Street, in the city of New York, in trust for the benefit of the children of his nephew, Thomas Kesolved Williams, of whom petitioner was one. The grantor retained a life income from the trust corpus. The trust indenture also provided:

The Grantor hereby reserves the right during his life to alter any and all of the terms and provisions of this trust deed, including the making of changes in the beneficiaries and the amounts they are to receive, but the Grantor shall have no power to revoke this trust deed in whole or in part or to revest in himself or to vest in his estate any part of the principal of the trust estate. Any such alteration shall be by indenture executed and delivered by the Grantor and the trustee.

The grantor died on May 16,1944, without having changed the beneficiaries of the trust. Petitioner, at that time, received an undivided one-fifth interest in the Beaver Street property. From that time until February 1,1945, she and the other co-owners rented the property for the purpose of producing income. The property was managed by an agent which maintained it, collected the rents, paid necessary taxes, insurance, the cost of repairs, and other expenses.

On February 1, 1945, petitioner joined with the other owners in a sale of the property for $35,000, less expenses of sale in the amount of $191.95. Petitioner’s share of the proceeds was $6,961.61.

The adjusted basis of the Beaver Street property on November 28, 1928, in the hands of the grantor, was $87,024.39. The fair market value of the property at that time was $155,000, of which amount $25,000 was allocable to the building and $130,000 to the land. The Beaver Street property was properly included in the gross estate of the grantor for Federal estate tax purposes at a value of $35,000.

On her income tax return for 1945, the petitioner claimed a long-term capital loss on the sale of the property using as a basis therefor the basis of the property in the hands of the grantor, $87,024.39. One thousand dollars of such capital loss was deducted in that year and $1,000 of such loss was carried .forward to each of the years 1946 and 1947.

On July 21,1950, petitioner filed a timely claim for refund of income tax paid for 1945 on the ground that the loss sustained in that year on the sale of the Beaver Street property should have been reported as an ordinary loss rather than as a long-term capital loss.

The respondent determined that the proper basis for computing the amount of loss sustained on the sale of the Beaver Street property was the fair market value of such property on the date of the grantor’s death, $35,000, and that the loss sustained was a capital loss.

Petitioner herein resists the respondent’s determination and renews her claim that the loss sustained on the sale of the Beaver Street property was an ordinary rather than a long-term capital loss.

Petitioner argues that section 113 (a) (2)1 of the 1939 Code is controlling here for the purpose of determining the basis of the Beaver Street property. She argues that the gift was made in 1928 and that the proper basis for determining a loss on the sale of the property is the grantor’s basis since such basis was lower than the fair market value of the property on the date of the gift.

In support of his determination that the Beaver Street property had a basis of $35,000, for purposes of computing a loss on its sale in 1945, the respondent argues that the basis for computing such loss should be determined under the provisions of section 113 (a) (5),2 and, in the alternative, if not so determined under that section, then under section 113 (a) (2); but, he argues that the date of the gift under that subsection was not the date on which the trust was created but the date of the grantor’s death. Hence, he claims that the proper basis for computing the loss under either that subsection or subsection (a) (5) is $35,000, the fair market value of the property at the time of the grantor’s death.

We think it clear from even a cursory reading of the trust indenture that subsection (a) (5) is not the applicable statute under which the basis of the Beaver Street property is to be determined. That subsection provides that if property was acquired by a transfer in trust under which the income therefrom is paid for life to the grantor who reserves the right to revoke the trust, the basis of such property in the hands of the beneficiaries shall be the same as if the trust instrument had been a will executed on the day of the grantor’s death, which means that the basis of the property would be the fair market value on the date of the grantor’s death. Such treatment of property acquired through an inter vivos trust, in which the grantor reserved the power of revocation, was first provided in the Revenue Act of 1928, 45 Stat. 791. The Conference Report3 which accompanied the Act stated that:

In view of the complete right of revocation * * * on the part of the grantor at all times between the date of creation of the trust and his death, it is proper to view the property for all practical purposes as belonging to the grantor rather than the beneficiaries and to treat the property as vesting in the beneficiaries according to the terms of the trust instrument, not at the date of creation of the trust, but rather on the date of the grantor’s death, for the purpose of determining gain or loss on sale or other disposition of the property * * * by a beneficiary. * * * [Emphasis added.]

Here the grantor reserved the right to alter any and all of the terms and provisions of the trust except that those powers could not be used to revoke the trust or to revest in him or his estate, in whole or in part, any part of the principal of the trust estate. Clearly, his powers to alter and amend were not the “complete right of revocation” which the statute contemplates.

The respondent’s argument here seems similar to the argument he advanced in Minnie M. Fay Trust “A”, 42 B. T. A. 765 (1940), and that advanced by the taxpayer in Commonweatlth Trust Co. of Pittsburgh v.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
26 T.C. 1055, 1956 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 92, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/post-v-commissioner-tax-1956.