Tobias v. Commissioner

40 T.C. 84, 1963 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 147
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedApril 22, 1963
DocketDocket No. 88979
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 40 T.C. 84 (Tobias 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
Tobias v. Commissioner, 40 T.C. 84, 1963 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 147 (tax 1963).

Opinion

OPINION

Black, Judge:

Issue 1

Involuntai^ Conversion of Property

Petitioner received $213,790.32 in 1954 as reimbursement under a fire insurance policy paid because of damaged and destroyed machinery and equipment located in a building owned by him. Petitioner purchased the building on or about February 1, 1949, and he leased it to Gibbons, a corporation in which he is controlling stockholder, for a term of 10 years on February 1, 1949, later changed to 20 years. Petitioner retained $207,706.77 of the insurance proceeds and paid Gibbons the amount of $6,088.55.

From February 1, 1949, to May 11, 1953, Gibbons purchased machinery and equipment for which it paid the amount of $115,011.87. The fire which caused a loss of approximately 40 percent of the machinery and equipment occurred on May 11, 1953. Fire insurance premiums were paid for by the lessee insuring jointly the interests of the lessor and lessee in the machinery and equipment.

Petitioner contends that under the terms of the lease between petitioner and Gibbons all the machinery and equipment placed in the building by the corporate lessee became petitioner’s property at the time it was installed, that he is entitled to all of the insurance proceeds, and that any gain to him is taxable at capital gain rates. Respondent contends that petitioner should report as a dividend taxable at ordinary income tax rates the proceeds he received in 1954 in the amount of $207,706.77 on the ground that the destroyed and damaged machinery and equipment in fact belonged to the lessee.

Petitioner reported the insurance payments as long-term capital gains in 1955 but now concedes that they are reportable in the year received, 1954. There is now no dispute as to the amount or year of payment or that petitioner personally received all of the proceeds except for $6,083.55. There is no dispute as to the payments collected by petitioner on his loss on the building itself. Petitioner has not replaced the damaged or destroyed machinery and equipment.

The questions presented are whether the additions of machinery and equipment made by the lessee during the term of the lease were the property of the lessor when they were destroyed by fire and, if so, what amount of the insurance proceeds collected by petitioner represented a reimbursement for his property. If the machinery and equipment added by the lessee to the building were not the property of the lessor but were in fact the property of the lessee, as respondent contends, then the insurance proceeds collected by petitioner, respondent contends, represent a constructive dividend to petitioner.

In 1938 the Supreme Court held that a lessor does not realize taxable income when a lessee makes improvements to the leasehold, M. E. Blatt Co. v. United States, 305 U.S. 267 (1938). In that case the Supreme Court concluded that:

It may be assumed that, subject to tbe lease, lessor became owner of tbe improvements at tbe time they were made. But it bad no right to use or dispose of tbem during tbe term. Mere acquisition of that sort did not amount to contemporaneous realization of gain witbin tbe meaning of tbe statute.

Two years later in Helvering v. Bruun, 309 U.S. 461 (1940), the Supreme Court modified the Blatt decision and determined that the lessor could derive income due to tlie improvements made during the lease at the termination of the lease. Congress, however, soon thereafter amended the law to exclude from the gross income of the lessor income attributable to the improvements made by the lessee. The congressional reports make it clear that section 115 of the Revenue Act of 1942 was designed to overrule the Bruun decision.1 Section 115 of the Revenue Act of 1942 became section 22(b) (11) of the 1939 Code, as amended, and section 109 2 of the 1954 Code is substantially identical with section 22(b) (11). Accordingly, if we find that the machinery and equipment constitute “other improvements” as that phrase is used in section 109 of the 1954 Code and that they became the lessor’s property under the lease, then the value of the improvements is not included in the gross income of the lessor and fire insurance proceeds paid on account of the involuntary conversion of that property belong to him. The terms of the lease set forth in our Findings of Fact make it clear, we think, that the machinery and equipment became the property of the lessor.

It seems apparent to us that the phrase “other improvements” as it is used in section 109 has application to permanent additions of value to real property. The additions of machinery and equipment made by the lessee in this case seem to fall within that definition. Most of the equipment was heavy and large and it appears that most of it was physically attached to the realty. The equipment was also necessary for the manufacturing process carried on in the building. As a general rule, under the law of fixtures, manufacturing equipment becomes part of the real property if the lessor and lessee so intend and where the equipment is needed in the manufacturing process carried on on the leasehold.3

We conclude that the machinery and equipment installed by the lessee constituted “other improvements” within the meaning of section 109 of the 1954 Code. Therefore, it appears that section 109 is applicable here.

Finding that the lease between petitioner and his corporation was a bona fide lease arrived at at arm’s length, our decision in Owen Meredith, 12 T.C. 344 (1949), is of particular note. In that case we held that the proceeds of fire insurance policies paid for by the lessee, covering improvements placed on the property by the lessee under a lease agreement which gave the lessor ownership of the improvements, were taxable to the lessor at capital gains rates. The following portions of that opinion are particularly relevant here:

There can be no question but that under the lease agreement the petitioner became the owner of the improvements at the time they were placed on the property. The only interest which the lessee had in them was the right to their use during the term of the lease. The cancellation of the lease immediately cut off that interest. At best, the lessee’s interest in the insurance proceeds gave it no more than a bargaining power in the negotiations for cancellation of the lease. It could forego its right under the lease agreement to the use of the insurance proceeds to replace the improvements in consideration for release from its obligation to pay rent for the remainder of the lease term. * * * We can not find on the evidence before us that the insurance proceeds were in fact received by petitioner, to any extent, as consideration for cancellation of the lease.
Even if the lessee had continued the lease and had been permitted to use the funds to replace the improvements, the converted fund in the form of new improvements would still have been the property of the lessor. Thus, it would seem that the petitioner was actually the equitable, as well as the legal, owner of the improvements and the insurance proceeds.

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Tobias v. Commissioner
40 T.C. 84 (U.S. Tax Court, 1963)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
40 T.C. 84, 1963 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 147, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tobias-v-commissioner-tax-1963.