Seiberling Rubber Co. v. Commissioner

8 T.C. 467, 1947 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 265
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedFebruary 28, 1947
DocketDocket No. 8693
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 8 T.C. 467 (Seiberling Rubber Co. 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
Seiberling Rubber Co. v. Commissioner, 8 T.C. 467, 1947 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 265 (tax 1947).

Opinion

OPINION.

Kern, Judge:

The first issue for consideration is whether the transactions conducted in 1934 whereby petitioner acquired the Kemitex Products, Inc., stock amounted to a nontaxable reorganization within the meaning of section 112 (b) (3), (4), or (5) of the Revenue Act of 1932.1

Petitioner’s primary contention that this was a nontaxable reorganization is based upon the provisions of section 112 (b) (5) of the 1932 Act. In support of this proposition petitioner argues, inter alia, as follows:

The Petitioner’s proprietary interest as creditor in the insolvent old Kemitex Company was transferred to the new Kemitex Company. This interest was “property”. It was transferred solely in exchange for stock of the new Kemitex Company and immediately after the exchange the Petitioner was in control of the transferee. No other person made any exchange for all the other creditors retained Interests in the new company exactly of the same kind and character as they had held in the old, with the single difference that the time of payment of their claims was deferred.
Such property interest or ownership as stockholders of the old Kemitex Company at one time had in its assets had been completely evaporated when the company became insolvent. The dominant stockholding interest of Petitioner in the old company enabled it, however, to use the old company as a convenient vehicle by which Petitioner’s property could be transferred to the new company.
In effect, the old company had become merely the title holder of its assets for the benefit of its creditors, who had become the beneficial owners or equitable claimants of all such assets. Creditors other than Petitioner made no exchange for the new company assumed the obligations owed to them. Because it was the controlling shareholder of the old company — even though the stock was worthless — Petitioner could require the old company, as title holder, to convey its assets to the new in “exchange” for the new company’s stock. The “property” which was exchanged was wholly the “property” of the Petitioner, which exchanged it for stock of a controlled corporation in the course of a “business adjustment." •
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* * * In any event, the Petitioner, considered as creditor, had such a “proprietary interest” in the old Kemitex Company that it was the owner, in reality, of all the property which passed to the new company. The provisions of Section 112 (b) (5) as to “proportionate interests” were fully met. The other creditors gave up no proprietary interests in the old company in exchange for some stock of the new. Instead, the new company assumed those debts as liabilities. Only the Petitioner was left to exchange its interest in the property of the old company for stock in the new. The common and preferred stockholders of the old company no longer had any property rights in it. Because Petitioner was the only holder of an interest in the old company, which exchanged that interest for stock in the new, it was entitled to, and did, receive all the stock of the new. * * * The interests of all owners and creditors in the new company were exactly proportionate to the interests which they had in the old.

Petitioner’s contentions, as set forth above, can not be sustained in view of our decision in Bunker Hill & Sullivan Mining & Concentrating Co., 1 T. C. 1057. In that case the taxpayer, Bunker Hill, owned a 50 per cent stock interest in a corporation engaged in the mining business. Bunker Hill and others, stockholders and non-stockholders, made advances from time to time to that corporation. Bunker Hill’s advances aggregated $8,702,000, on which repayments were made from time to time, leaving a balance due of $3,776,000, which amount was evidenced by a demand promissory note dated May 1,1938, with 5 per cent interest payable annually. On December 30, 1937, the debtor, pursuant to a plan of reorganization to which its creditors agreed on December 8, 1937, transferred all of its assets to a new corporation in exchange for stock. The creditors of the debtor, including nonstockholders, received 88.70 per cent of the issued stock of the new corporation and the stockholders of the debtor, including noncreditors, received 11.30 per cent thereof. The stock of the new corporation was issued directly to the debtor corporation in exchange for its assets and thereafter the debtor, corporation distributed these shares to its stockholders and creditors in accordance with the plan and in amounts previously agreed upon. Embodied in the plan was a provision that all of the property of the debtor corporation was to be transferred to the new corporation free and clear of all debts and liabilities except for certain indebtedness in the amount of $500,000 due a preferred creditor, which indebtedness was assumed by the new corporation. In holding that this transaction did not come within the scope of section 112 (b) (5) of the Revenue Act of 1936, which, in so far as here material, reads the same as the section now under consideration, we stated:

Petitioner presents three reasons why the rationale of the Cement Investors case, supra, is inapplicable here: First, it transferred no property to the new corporation; * * *.
* * * We have little difficulty in agreeing with petitioner on the first point made. It is stipulated that “Treadwell Yukon [the debtor corporation] sold, conveyed and transferred all of its assets to the new corporation” on December 30, 1937 * * *. Prior thereto there had been no division or distribution of the debtor’s assets among its creditors or its stockholders. In the absence thereof we can not see how it can be said that the creditors or stockholders transferred the assets to the new corporation or that Treadwell Yukon acted as agent or trustee for either group in so doing. In our opinion it acted for itself, as the parties have stipulated. Until a court of equity intervenes stockholders and creditors are not the owners of the corporate assets, notwithstanding the insolvency of the corporation. Hollins v. Brierfield Coal & Iron Co., 150 U. S. 371, 382, 383. In the Cement Investors case, supra, the Court specifically pointed out that ownership of the equity in the debtor companies effectively passed to the creditors when the processes of law were invoked to enforce their rights of full priority and at least as early as when the creditors instituted section 77B proceedings under the Bankruptcy Act whereby they excluded the stockholders. It can not be said that the voluntary compromise entered into by petitioner’s creditors on December 8, 1937, excluded tlie stockholders and passed the ownership of the equity in the debtor corporation to the creditors, enabling them to enforce their rights of full priority, as was the effect of the court order in Cement Investors, supra.

The facts in the case at bar are much the same as those in the Bunker Mill case. Here, too, the creditors received stock and promissory notes of the new corporation. Furthermore, some of the former stockholders, the preferred shareholders other than petitioner, participated as shareholders. In neither case did the creditors invoke the processes of law to enforce their rights of full priority.

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Seiberling Rubber Co. v. United States
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Seiberling Rubber Co. v. Commissioner
8 T.C. 467 (U.S. Tax Court, 1947)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
8 T.C. 467, 1947 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 265, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/seiberling-rubber-co-v-commissioner-tax-1947.