Russell v. Commissioner

5 T.C. 974, 1945 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 54
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedOctober 24, 1945
DocketDocket No. 5706
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 5 T.C. 974 (Russell 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
Russell v. Commissioner, 5 T.C. 974, 1945 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 54 (tax 1945).

Opinion

OriNION.

Black, Judge:

We shall take up and decide the issues in their order.

The question raised by issue 1 is whether petitioner is taxable on the income of a trust which he created in 1939, where certain of the income of the trust was used in the taxable years to discharge the debts of petitioner incurred prior to the creation of the trust and to repay a loan made by petitioner to the trust. The facts with relation to the creation of the trust, the relevant terms and conditions of the trust indenture, the amounts of the income of the trust in the taxable years, and how such income was used are all set forth in our findings of fact and need not be repeated at length in this opinion.

Respondent makes no contention that petitioner reserved any powers to alter, amend or revoke the trust so as to make the income taxable to him under section 166 of the Internal Revenue Code, nor do we understand him to contend that petitioner reserved any such extensive powers of control over the trust corpus or income as to make the trust income taxable to petitioner under section 22 (a) and the doctrine of Helvering v. Clifford, 309 U. S. 331. Respondent relies principally upon section 167 (a) of the code, which is printed in the margin.1

Regulations 103, section 19.167-1, deals with the scope of section 167 and is printed in part in the margin.2

Petitioner contends that he can not be taxed upon any portion of the income of the trust which he created in 1939 for the benefit of his mother and daughter because he irrevocably divested himself of all interest in and command over both principal and income of said trust and because the petitioner’s mother had complete dominion of the trust income. In support of this contention petitioner cites Lillian M. Newman, 1 T. C. 921, and Phipps v. Commissioner, 137 Fed. (2d) 141.

Petitioner next contends that, when a beneficiary is entitled to receive trust income without restriction upon its use, the grantor can not be taxed upon such income even if the beneficiary actually applies the income in discharge of a legal obligation of the grantor. He cites Henry A. B. Dunning, 36 B. T. A. 1222; Ralph L. Gray, 38 B. T. A. 584; and Stephen Hexter, 47 B. T. A. 483. Petitioner points out that under the terms of the trust indenture the income of the trust was to be paid in quarterly installments to Alice G. Russell, his mother, or whomever she should appoint to receive it. He further points out that the evidence shows that the income of the trust was used to pay the indebtedness against the trust corpus at the request of Alice G. Russell and not at the request of petitioner and that he had nothing to do with making such a request.

If this were all, petitioner’s contention would seem to be well taken. But this is not all. Section 7 (a) of the trust indenture provides:

7. The Trustees acting hereunder shall have full power and authority throughout the continuance in effect of this trust to do and perform the following things:
(a) * * * to discharge any indebtedness which may exist against any property or interest in property conveyed into this trust, and for this purpose to make loans upon the trust property or any part thereof, and to pay such loans out of income; * * *

When petitioner created the trust in December of 1939 he transferred to it 50 shares of Emery & Conant Co. stock which were free from indebtedness. He also transferred 350 shares against which there was an indebtedness of $25,000 which was the personal indebtedness of petitioner. It has been stipulated that:

In January of 1940, the trustees paid the loan of $25,000 * * *. To accomplish this the trustees borrowed $20,000 from the petitioner to whom they issued their interest bearing note. The remaining $5,000 necessary to pay off the loan was undistributed trust income of 1939. * * *

The stipulation goes on further to show that this loan of $20,000 obtained from petitioner was subsequently paid with income of the trust.

All this, it seems to us, adds up to the fact that petitioner’s indebtedness of $25,000 which existed when he transferred the 350 shares of Emery & Conant stock to the trust was ultimately paid out of the income of the trust. It is true that the trustees in doing this appear to have been authorized to do so by Alice G. Russell, petitioner’s mother, who was one of the beneficiaries of the trust, but, as we read the trust indenture, the trustees did not have to obtain the authorization from Alice G. Russell to do what they did. They had full power to do it under the language which we have quoted above from the trust indenture. These trustees had no adverse interest to that of petitioner. Section 107 (a) (2) of the code provides:

(a) Where any part of the income of a trust—
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(2) may, in the discretion of the grantor or of any person not having a substantial adverse interest in the disposition of such part of the income, be distributed to the grantor;

While it is true that the grantor did not reserve the right to direct the distribution of any of the income of the trust to pay off the $25,000 indebtedness which existed against the 350 shares of stock, he did confer such discretion upon the trustees of the trust and clearly these trustees did not have any interest adverse to petitioner. While these trustees adopted the method of paying off $20,000 of the indebtedness by borrowing $20,000 from petitioner and then repaying this $20,000 out of the income of the trust, we think the substance of the transaction was that the original indebtedness of $25,000 which existed against 350 shares of stock was paid out of the income of the trust, and that appears to have been the intent of the petitioner when the trust indenture was executed. We are frequently admonished to give effect to substance rather than to form. Cf. Commissioner v. Court Holding Co., 324 U. S. 331. We do so in this case.

Construing what was done as we do brings the instant case, we think, within the ambit of Lucy A. Blumenthal, 30 B. T. A. 591; reversed, 76 Fed. (2d) 507; reversed per curiam, 296 U. S. 552.

Of course, it seems clear enough that after the income of the trust in the instant case had been used to pay off the $25,000 of petitioner’s indebtedness he had no further interest in the trust income or corpus, for the trust was irrevocable and after the payment of the $25,000 indebtedness none of the income could be distributed to petitioner or used to pay any of his obligations. But as to the $7,182.31 in the year 1940 and $4,000 in the year 1941, included by the Commissioner in petitioner’s income for those years, we sustain the Commissioner.

We must next decide whether we should grant respondent’s motion for an increased deficiency on the ground that he should have added to petitioner’s income in 1941 $11,409.43 representing income of the trust instead of the $4,000 which he added.

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Related

Russell v. Commissioner
5 T.C. 974 (U.S. Tax Court, 1945)

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Bluebook (online)
5 T.C. 974, 1945 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 54, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/russell-v-commissioner-tax-1945.