Sheldon v. Commissioner

62 T.C. No. 12, 62 T.C. 96, 1974 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 120
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedApril 25, 1974
DocketDocket No. 5550-71
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 62 T.C. No. 12 (Sheldon 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
Sheldon v. Commissioner, 62 T.C. No. 12, 62 T.C. 96, 1974 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 120 (tax 1974).

Opinion

FeatheRston, Judge:

Respondent determined deficiencies in petitioners’ income tax for 1965 through 1969 as follows:

Year Amount Year Amount
1965_$1, 739.12 1968_$1,945.00
1966 _ 2,434. SO 1969 _ 3, 752. 00
1967 _ 2, 935. 55

The issue is whether petitioners properly excluded from their gross income, as defined in section 61,1.R.C. 1954, amounts received by the Porterville Church of the Nazareno from the marketing of their cotton by a cooperative marketing association. The answer depends on whether petitioners made gifts to the church of bales of cotton as such or the sales proceeds attributable to those bales.

FINDINGS OF FACT

Petitioners Harold N. and Retha M. Sheldon, husband and wife, were legal residents of Strathmore, Calif., at the time they filed their petition. They filed their joint income tax returns for 1965, 1966, and 1967 with the district director of internal revenue at San Francisco and for 1968 and 1969 with the Western Service Center, Ogden, Utah. In maintaining their records and filing their returns, petitioners used the cash method of accounting. Most of their business activities were handled by Harold N. Sheldon, and he will be referred to herein as petitioner.

During the period in controversy, petitioner owned and operated a 700-acre farm on which he raised various crops, including cotton, and in computing his income tax for each year he deducted his expenses pertaining to all the cotton produced that year. Pie had the cotton ginned and processed through the Tule River Cooperative Gins, Inc. (the gin), at Woodville, Calif. He marketed the cotton through Cal-cot, Ltd. (Calcot), a nonprofit cooperative association of which he was a member.

Calcot was organized and is operated under the provisions of the Agricultural Code of the State of California for the purpose of marketing cotton, cottonseed, and other cotton products of its members. Its principal office and its storage facilities are located in Bakersfield, Calif.

On November 18,1950, petitioner and Calcot executed a contract entitled “Marketing Agreement,” which was in effect during the years in controversy. The pertinent provisions of the contract, which refers to Calcot as “the Association,” include the following:

L That during the life of this agreement the Association agrees t* receive and the Grower agrees to deliver to the Association all cotton produced by or for him, or as much thereof as he may control.
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8. (a) The Grower hereby appoints the Association his agent for the purpose of handling and marketing his cotton according to the most -practicable method as determined by the Association.
(b) The Association shall make rules and regulations with respect to the classing, grading, financing, shipping, pooling and selling cotton as well as with respect to accounting to the Grower for the proceeds from the sale of cotton, lees deductions hereinafter specified. The grading and classing of cotton by the Association shall be conclusive as between the parties hereto. Pools may be established, altered, or discontinued at any time by direction of the Board of Directors of the Association.
(c) The Association is hereby authorized to affiliate and contract with such marketing or other agencies as the said Board of Directors shall determine.
4. Title to cotton shall pass from the Qrower to the Association upon its delivery to the Asociation [sic]. The Association may borrow such sums of money on the security of cotton or other assets as the Board of Directors shall deem necessary or advisable. [Emphasis supplied.]
5. The Association shall market the cotton delivered by the Grower and there shall be deducted from the proceeds of sale thereof the cost of freight, insurance, storage, and any other expense incurred in handling cotton, including all costs of operating and maintaining the Association together with retains for the Association Revolving Fund and other fund or funds provided for in the Association’s by-laws. Such retains shall in no event be less than one per cent of the gross sale price of the cotton delivered hereunder.
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8. This agreement shall be governed by and subject to all the provisions of the Articles of Incorporation and By-Laws of the Association and any amendments or revisions thereof.

Calcot’s “By-Laws” contain the following pertinent provisions:

Section 2.01. QUALIFICATIONS FOR MEMBERSHIP. Any person engaged in the production of products shall be eligible to membership in Association. The word “person”, as used in this Article includes individuals, firms, partnerships, corporations, and associations; and also, lessees and tenants of lands used for or in the production of products, and any lessor or landlord who receives as rent all or part of the products raised on leased premises.
A cooperative association as defined by the Act of Congress known as the Agricultural Marketing Act (12 United States Code, Section 1141 [j] [a]) shall be eligible for membership in the Association. The Association shall be eligible to be a member of another cooperative association organized under the provisions of the Cooperative Act of California, or under the laws of any other state.
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Section 2.07. MEMBER TO FILE AGREEMENT. Each member shall execute and file with Association an agreement to market products through the facilities of the Association, and containing such other provisions and being in such form as the Board shall prescribe.
Such agreement may be combined with and incorporated in the application for membership, and, in such case, acceptance of the application shall be deemed approval and execution of the agreement by Association and shall make the agreement immediately effective and binding upon the applicant (member) and Association.
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The agreements with members need not be uniform in all respects. Variations in terms of contracts with members shall be based on the difference of type of patronage of the Association’s facilities with the members. In no event shall any such contract with a member obligate or permit the Association to operate otherwise than a non-profit cooperative association.
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Section 10.07. HYPOTHECATE PROPERTY.

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Sheldon v. Commissioner
62 T.C. No. 12 (U.S. Tax Court, 1974)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
62 T.C. No. 12, 62 T.C. 96, 1974 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 120, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sheldon-v-commissioner-tax-1974.