Travelers Insurance v. United States

25 Cl. Ct. 141, 69 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 593, 1992 U.S. Claims LEXIS 26, 1992 WL 15985
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedJanuary 31, 1992
DocketNos. 494-88T, 262-89T
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 25 Cl. Ct. 141 (Travelers Insurance v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Travelers Insurance v. United States, 25 Cl. Ct. 141, 69 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 593, 1992 U.S. Claims LEXIS 26, 1992 WL 15985 (cc 1992).

Opinion

OPINION

SMITH, Chief Judge

These consolidated tax refund cases come before the court on defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, pursuant to Rule 12(b)(4) of the Rules of the United States Claims Court. RUSCC 12(b)(4) (1991).

The question before the court is whether prepayment charges1 received by plaintiff, Travelers Insurance Company (Travelers), in relation to early repayment of corporate mortgages, should be taxed as non-insurance investment income or long-term capital gain.2

After extensive briefing by the parties, oral argument and a thorough examination of the voluminous legislative history and case law relevant to the issue, for the reasons set forth below, the court denies defendant’s motion.

FACTS

During the years in issue, plaintiff was at all times a life insurance company as defined in § 801(a) of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC or Code) of 1954.3

The tax years in dispute are 1974 through and including 1978. During those years, as part of its regular investment activities, plaintiff made mortgage loans to corporate borrowers. The mortgages provided that the notes could be retired by the corporate issuers prior to maturity upon the payment of the principle, accrued interest and a prepayment charge.

The Internal Revenue Service included the amounts of prepayment charges paid to plaintiff upon retirement of the corporate mortgage notes during the years involved as gross investment income under IRC § 804(b). Plaintiff argues that pursuant to IRC § 1232 the prepayment charges are [143]*143considered gain, from the sale or exchange of a capital asset, which is not includible in gross - investment income. During the years in suit, plaintiff claims it received in excess of $1 million in corporate prepayment charges.

DISCUSSION

Motion To Dismiss

In ruling on a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, the court must presume all factual allegations of the complaint to be true, and must make all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party. Miree v. Dekalb County, 438 U.S. 25, 97 S.Ct. 2490, 53 L.Ed.2d 557 (1977). A motion brought under RUSCC 12(b)(4) should be denied, “unless it appears beyond a doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957).

IRC §§ 804(b) and 1232

In order to decide the case, the court must decide whether an exception is created by § 1232 for corporate mortgage prepayment charges which would preclude those amounts from being treated as gross investment income under § 804(b).4

Section 1232 was enacted in response to development of tax avoidance devices involving original issue discount (OID). The situation is illustrated by the following simple example: A borrower seeks a loan of $100 repayable in 10 years at a 10 percent rate of interest. Under a conventional loan, a lender loans $100 to the borrower in 1930. The borrower agrees to pay the lender $10 each year as interest on the loan and to repay the lender the full $100 of principle in 1940. Under an OID loan, the lender also agrees to loan $100 to the borrower in 1930. No interest is charged on the loan, but the borrower agrees to pay the lender $200 in 1940 upon retirement of the loan. From a tax perspective, there is no question that the lender in the conventional loan situation must recognize $100 in interest income over the course of the term. There has been disagreement, however, over the tax treatment of the OID loan. In Commissioner v. Caulkins, 144 F.2d 482 (6th Cir.1944), which predates the 1954 IRC in which § 1232 was enacted, repayment of the OID loan in the example above was treated as an exchange of the $100 loan for $200 10 years later. The lender was allowed to recognize $100 in capital gain treatment in 1940. This gave the OID lender two advantages over the conventional lender. The $100 of capital gain realized in the OID loan was taxed at a lower rate than the $100 of interest income realized by the lender in the conventional loan. Secondly, the OID lender did not pay any tax until 1940 while the lender in the conventional loan paid tax in earlier years. Given the time value of money, the OID lender was in a better position than the conventional lender because it had deferred its tax liability as well as reduced the rate. The various amendments to the OID provisions have attempted to provide for equal tax treatment of the two types of loans.

In this case, defendant argues that the prepayment charges which the plaintiff received are income that is includible in the gross investment income of a life insurance company under § 804(b), as income received from the alteration or termination of an instrument or agreement from which interest is derived. Plaintiff concurs that prepayment charges would be includible in gross investment income under § 804(b) alone. However, this is not so, argues plaintiff, if they are capital gain as defined under § 1232. Plaintiff claims that by virtue of § 1232(a)(1) the retirement of corporate notes is considered a sale or exchange of a capital asset. Once the required sale or exchange is established, § 1232(a)(2) determines the character of the gain. In this case this leads to a determination that the gain is a capital gain.

[144]*144The capital gain character is preserved, plaintiff maintains, for purposes of computing life insurance company taxable income by § 804(b). Although § 804(b)(1)(C) states that income derived from the alteration or termination of any instrument or agreement from which a life insurance company derives interest will be treated as gross investment income, that provision is limited, according to plaintiff, by the last sentence of § 804(b): “in computing gross investment income under this subsection, there shall be excluded any gain from the sale or exchange of a capital asset, and any gain considered as gain from the sale or exchange of a capital asset.” Plaintiff contends that this savings clause preserves capital gain treatment for any item that is received from the termination of an instrument from which the insurance company received interest income to the extent that capital gain treatment is provided for somewhere else in the Code.

Defendant acknowledges that a “wooden reading” of § 1232(a)(2) supports plaintiff’s contention. Defendant urges the court to reject such a contention because the bare statutory language should be construed in conjunction with the entire statutory scheme and the policy objectives of the law.

Interest Substitute Theory

The issue of the characterization of prepayment charges for taxation purposes has been before the courts before. Defendant uses these prior decisions to argue that even if the § 804(b) capital gains exclusion modifies the § 804(b)(1)(C) definition of income, the charges would still be gross investment income because the courts have consistently held that amounts such as the ones at issue do not represent gain from the sale or exchange of capital assets.

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Related

Calloway v. Commissioner
135 T.C. No. 3 (U.S. Tax Court, 2010)
Buser v. United States
85 Fed. Cl. 248 (Federal Claims, 2009)
Travelers Insurance v. United States
46 Fed. Cl. 458 (Federal Claims, 2000)

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Bluebook (online)
25 Cl. Ct. 141, 69 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 593, 1992 U.S. Claims LEXIS 26, 1992 WL 15985, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/travelers-insurance-v-united-states-cc-1992.