Shapero v. Commissioner

8 T.C. 104, 1947 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 311
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedJanuary 22, 1947
DocketDocket No. 6181
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 8 T.C. 104 (Shapero 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
Shapero v. Commissioner, 8 T.C. 104, 1947 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 311 (tax 1947).

Opinions

OPINION.

Hill, Judge:

The question for our determination is whether or not the petitioner is taxable as an individual upon the income of the three trusts created by him in 1934 for the benefit of his wife and minor children. The respondent has determined that the powers over the trusts retained by the petitioner as donor-trustee require the taxation to him of the trust income under section 22 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code.

It has often been observed that each case of this character rests primarily on its own facts. The facts here indicate to us that petitioner’s economic position was essentially the same after the trusts were created as it was before. We therefore believe that as to each trust this case is within the ambit of Clifford v. Helvering, 309 U. S. 331, and respondent accordingly must be sustained.

The significance of petitioner’s gifts in trust can be properly determined only it it is borne in mind that he and the beneficiaries, two of whom were minors, are all and the only members of an intimate family group, he being the head of that group and annually receiving income in excess of his own normal needs. The income in question remains in his family and the immediate question presented is whether the allocation of such income to family members other than himself effected any substantial change in petitioner’s rights of enjoyment of the property forming the corpora of the trusts. As has been repeatedly said, the issue will be determined not by whether petitioner retained some particular right over the property, but whether the bundle, or aggregate, of his retained rights plus the indirect benefits from the operation of the trusts constitute “a fair equivalent of what he previously had.”

We think it would be difficult to vest more complete administrative control in a trustee than that which petitioner expressly retained to himself over the corpus of each trust. He held as trustee “the fullest possible latitude in making investments,” the discretionary right to manage all the trust properties, the unlimited power to vote all trust stocks or to direct the manner in which they should be voted, “absolute and uncontrolled discretion” to determine the expediency and propriety of selling, mortgaging, or otherwise disposing of all trust property, “at such time or times and in such manner, either public or private, and upon such terms” as he thought fit, the right to distribute in kind trust securities selected by him and to make a “final and conclusive” determination of the proportions and prices at which such distributions should be made, the privilege of joining with security holders in voting trusts, reorganizations, and refinancing arrangements and of despositing trust stocks for that purpose, the “complete and absolute power * * * to direct the payment and conveyance * * * of any part or all of the principal of the trust property * * * , as well as any accumulated income therefrom, to the then living bene-ficary or beneficiaries thereof, in such proportions [as petitioner] may think proper,” and “the fullest and most complete powers and authority which it is possible for Grantor to give in respect of all sales, investments, expenditures, management and control of the trust property and estate; * * * ” It is clear that under the trust instruments the intended and vested powers of the corporate trastee were limited to the perfunctory duties of property custodian and bookkeeper. To the extent that Detroit Trust Co. did more than that in the management of the trusts, it acted at the grace of petitioner as individual trustee and was at all time subject to his control. Petitioner’s complete control over the trust company was assured by his retention in himself, as grantor, of the power to remove the corporate trustee and to fill or leave open the vacancy thus created. Under these circumstances, the corporate trustee’s conduct in the operation of the trust is not indicative of divestiture by petitioner of any control over the trust corpus. Louis Stockstrom et al., Trustees, 4 T. C. 5; affd., 151 Fed. (2d) 353.

It may be said that, however extensive are such enumerated powers over property, they alone, particularly when exercisable as trustee and thus subject to the control of chancery, are not equivalent to property ownership under the Clifford doctrine. We have indeed said that in these cases the possibility of economic benefit to the holder of such powers is indispensable to a determination of the taxability of the income from the property to him under section 22 (a). See David L. Loew, 7 T. C. 363, and Alma M. Myer, 6 T. C. 77.

Petitioner’s trustee powers far exceeded those traditionally exercisable at chancery, however, and in their exercise petitioner had by exculpatory clauses and by reservations of broad discretion removed himself to the fullest extent possible under the law from the control of the chancellor’s conscience and the application of the sanctions of equity. In general, the beneficiaries could require of him as trustee only good faith, a limitation the substance of which must be viewed in the light of “the normal consequence of family solidarity.” In addition, petitioner reserved to himself, as grantor, a lifetime power to alter or amend the trust agreements in whole or in part, which might be exercised to avoid threatened interference with his dominance of the trusts by shifting the relevant managerial powers from himself as trustee to himself as grantor. Compare the reserved powers of amendment in Kohnstamm v. Pedrick, 153 Fed. (2d) 506, and in Cory v. Commissioner, 126 Fed. (2d) 689.

Petitioner points out that the power to amend expressly could not be used to revoke the trusts or “to change or impair the right of enjoyment of any beneficiary.” Furthermore, by explicit limitation, petitioner did “not have the power at any time during the continuance of the trusts * * * to revest in himself title tó any part of the corpus or income * * *.” Nor do the trust instruments provide for reversion of corpus or accumulations to the grantor. As indicated many times, however, the ability of the grantor to recover title to principal or income and his ability to dispose of either by will are neither separately nor together prerequisites of the application of the Clifford rule. See Ellis H. Warren, 45 B. T. A. 379; affd., 133 Fed. (2d) 312, and Commissioner v. Buck, 120 Fed. (2d) 775. Where a grantor-trustee’s control over corpus or income during the taxable year is substantially equivalent to that of a title holder, lack of title as an individual is of “little or no significance in household relationships.”

As to the benefits derivable by petitioner from the trusteed property, we note at once that, by the exercise of his settlor and trustee powers, he remained after the creation of the trusts fully able to enjoy the “challenge and zest of employing the [property] to beget more property and * * * to vindicate his business skill * * He continued to know and use the “pleasure and power of regulating, providing for or supplementing the wants and conveniences of the members of his family in their attained station * * Cf. Stockstrom v. Commissioner, 148 Fed. (2d) 491, 494,1 modifying 3 T. C. 255, and Funsten v. Commissioner, 148 Fed. (2d) 805.

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Shapero v. Commissioner
8 T.C. 104 (U.S. Tax Court, 1947)

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Bluebook (online)
8 T.C. 104, 1947 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 311, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/shapero-v-commissioner-tax-1947.