Rife v. Commissioner

41 T.C. 732, 1964 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 138, 20 Oil & Gas Rep. 659
United States Tax Court·Decided March 6, 1964·No. Docket No. 89682·Published·Cited by 32 cases

Opinions

OPINION

Issue 1

The first issue is whether petitioners are entitled to deduct intangible drilling and development expenses as of the time such expenses were incurred and charged to petitioner’s drawing account with Drilling, a partnership in which petitioner was a principal partner, or in a subsequent year when the accounts of the partnership were closed. Petitioner's take the position that these expenses are deductible as of the time they were charged to petitioner’s drawing accomit by the partnership. It is respondent’s position that petitioner, who keeps his books and reports his income on the cash basis, did not pay the amount of such expense's until the end of the taxable years of the partnership (March 31, 1956, 1957, and 1958) when the debit balances in his drawing account were offset against his distributable portion of partnership income and the debit or income balance closed out into his capital account on the partnership’s books.

Petitioner owned and operated Production as a sole proprietorship. Production drilled various oil wells during the years involved primarily in joint ventures. Petitioner was also a five-sixths partner in Drilling, which partnership drilled all of the wells in which petitioner participated. This issue arises because petitioner, individually and doing business as Production, kept books and records on the cash basis and reported income for tax purposes on the calendar year, Whereas the partnership, Drilling, kept its books and records on an accrual basis and reported partnership income on a fiscal year ending March 31.

All the drilling and development expenses incurred in the joint ventures in which petitioner participated and in drilling the wells in which petitioner owned 100 percent of the working interest, were paid currently by Drilling. Drilling billed Production for the entire amount of these drilling and development expenses and charged the amounts so billed to petitioner’s drawing account. The other coven-turers would pay their respective shares of the expenses to petitioner. Generally petitioner would turn these payments over to Drilling, and Drilling would credit such amounts to petitioner’s drawing account. There is some evidence in the record that petitioner, from time to time, would make payments to Drilling from other sources, but petitioner has failed to show the amounts and times of these payments. The evidence fails to show that any such payments were for his portion of drilling expenses and not for other charges to his drawing account. The parties have stipulated that “The amounts remaining charged to petitioner’s drawing account with Bife Drilling Company at the end of each fiscal year included his share of the billings for development expenses by Rife Drilling Company.” The inference from this stipulated fact is that no amount of petitioner’s payments to Drilling other than the amount turned over to Drilling from payments to him from his coventures was for payment of drilling and development expenses. (From the stipulated figures in the record and the copy of petitioner’s drawing account received in evidence when offered by petitioner, it appears that this inference cannot infant be true. The unpaid balance in petitioner’s drawing account as of December 31,1955, appears to be approximately $101,000 as compared to a disallowance by respondent of intangible drilling expenses of $168,234.43. However, the burden of explaining this apparent inconsistency is on petitioners, and they have not explained it.) Petitioner has failed to prove that he made any cash payments to Drilling for development expenses and therefore we conclude that no cash payments were in fact made by petitioner to Drilling.

For each of the years here involved petitioner in computing his taxable income deducted his share of intangible expenses in the calendar year when the expenses were incurred and charged to his drawing account by Drilling. Respondent has disallowed the portion of these deductions taken by petitioner in the calendar years 1955, 1956, and 1957 that was charged to his drawing account during the period of April 1 through December 31 in each of these years and has allowed such amounts as deductions in each succeeding year.

Respondent contends that petitioner, being on the cash basis, cannot create a deduction for these expenses by a mere entry on the books of Drilling in a partner’s drawing accoimt. Respondent contends these charges represent advance distributions or advances of the partnership to the partner and as such cannot be recognized until the last day of the partnership’s fiscal year when the charges and petitioner’s share of partnership earnings were closed to petitioner’s capital account. Since petitioner reports his income on the cash basis, the billing of the expenses to petitioner does not entitle petitioner to a deduction therefor. Petitioner must show payment of these expenses to be entitled to a deduction therefor. Petitioner recognizes this requirement but contends that the charging of the amounts to his drawing account by Drilling constitutes payment thereof by him.

The statutory provisions with respect to partnerships provide for a yearly separate computation of partnership income and the inclusion of a partner’s distributive share of such yearly partnership income in his income for the taxable year in which falls the end of the partnership taxable year.2 Section 1.731-1(ii), Income Tax Regs., provides the following:

(ii) For the purposes of sections 731 and 705, advances or drawings of money or property against a partner’s distributive share of income shall be treated as current distributions made on the last day of the partnership taxable year with respect to such partner.

This regulation is consistent with not considering distributions to a partner by a partnership as income to the partner when received by him.3 If charges by a partnership to a partner’s drawing account were to be considered as payment of such amounts by the partner, it would follow that such charges,, being the equivalent of an advance by the partnership to the partner, should be considered as income to the partner. The charges by Drilling to petitioner’s drawing account for the drilling expenses owed .by petitioner to Drilling were advance distributions from the partnership to petitioner just as any other advances. These distributions are not to be accounted for by petitioner until the last day of the partnership’s taxable year. Since the partnership’s taxable year did not close until March 31, the expenses, the deduction of which are here in issue, are deemed to have been paid by petitioner as of March 31, 1956, 1957, and 1958, as respondent has determined.

There is no evidence to support petitioner’s contention that the charges to his drawing account for his share of the drilling and development expenses should be treated as loans. Drilling did the drilling of the wells and incurred the expenses in the first instance. Petitioner and his coventurers contracted with Drilling to drill wells for them just as if Drilling had no relationship to petitioner. Therefore when Drilling paid the drilling costs, it was paying its own liabilities. Drilling then billed petitioner not only for its costs but also its profit, or petitioner’s total drilling costs. If nothing further had occurred until the end of Drilling’s fiscal year and petitioner had at that time paid Drilling out of his partnership profits, the payment by petitioner would clearly show as of the date of the end of the partnership’s fiscal year.

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Rife v. Commissioner, 41 T.C. 732, 1964 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 138, 20 Oil & Gas Rep. 659 (tax 1964).

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