United States v. Ernest O. D. Campbell

351 F.2d 336, 16 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5697, 1965 U.S. App. LEXIS 4424
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedSeptember 28, 1965
Docket29463_1
StatusPublished
Cited by32 cases

This text of 351 F.2d 336 (United States v. Ernest O. D. Campbell) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Ernest O. D. Campbell, 351 F.2d 336, 16 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5697, 1965 U.S. App. LEXIS 4424 (2d Cir. 1965).

Opinion

MOORE, Circuit Judge.

The defendant, Ernest O. D. Campbell, appeals from a judgment of conviction, after a jury verdict, on five counts of an indictment charging him with a wilful attempt to evade United States income taxes for 1955 through 1958 in violation of Section 7201 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 (the Code) (counts I — III and V) and on one count alleging that he had made a wilful false statement on his 1957 federal tax return in violation of Section 1001 of the Code (count IV).

Campbell, a United States citizen, moved to Canada in 1945. His conviction arises from his treatment of the United States income tax aspects of several stock transactions: (1) failure to report profits of approximately $1,194,394.75 in 1955 and $117,833.74 in 1956 from the sale of his large blocks of stock in Campbell-Chibougamau, Ltd., a Canadian mining corporation which Campbell had helped to form (counts I and II); (2) failure to report the receipt in 1957 of some $3,000 (count III); (3) the false report of a “sale” to his wife of Ford Highwood Collieries, Ltd. stock for $19,-657.91, which Campbell and his wife had purchased originally in 1956 for $133,000 (count IV); and (4) the false report of a “loss” on this sale of $112,000 of the original purchase price of the Ford Highwood Collieries, Ltd. stock as a carry-over deduction on his income tax return for 1958 (count V).

Citizenship

Campbell in August 1956 best describes his own status to the Canadian Department of National Revenue: “I am, and always have been a citizen of the United States, and whatever income I earned in Canada, I included in my returns for the aforementioned years *338 [1954-1955], which I filed in New York,” and specifically for 1955 “In 1955, the taxpayer [Campbell] was and still is a non-resident of Canada, being domiciled in the State of New York, U. S. A.”

As a citizen of the United States and a resident of New York State, Campbell was under a legal obligation to file a federal income tax return for 1955. He did so, reporting an adjusted gross income of $8,859.99 but failed to report long-term capital gains of $845,056.60, arising primarily from sales in the United States and Canada of stock of Campbell-Chibougamau Mines, Ltd. owned by him. Upon a recomputation of the tax due, the Government calculated that the true adjusted gross income should have been $433,910.99. The Government alleged a tax deficiency of $237,835.59 of which it proved $211,277.15.

Campbell had long been well versed in figures, first as a bookkeeper in Wall Street and then as a stock broker for some 30 to 35 years. He did not report his huge capital gains because he regarded them as resulting from Canadian transactions. Under Canadian law, there was no tax on capital gains. When it served his tax convenience, Campbell was a resident of Canada and, when Canada approached him with the suggestion of paying taxes there, he quickly signed whatever statements were necessary to proclaim that he was a non-resident of Canada and domiciled in New York. These statements (a “form” he called it) he attributes to his lawyer anxious to defend him against a Canadian tax.

Campbell upon this appeal does not contest his wilful failure to include large amounts of income (capital gains) in his return but bases his case here, as he did throughout the trial, on the claim that actually and in retrospect Canadian tax assessments for the years 1955 and 1956 should be regarded as taxes paid or accrued during the taxable year to a foreign country and, hence, a deduction under the tax form item “8. Tax credits * * * (a) Credit for income tax payments to a foreign country or U. S. possession (Attach Form 1116).” Thus, argues Campbell, if the Canadian assessment qualifies for the credit under the category “paid or accrued” (which he asserts it does) then any United States tax is wiped out. His conclusion is that no matter how fraudulent and wilful were his efforts to cheat both countries of any tax on his huge gains, he cannot be convicted of evading or defeating a tax which never came into being.

Despite his detailed arguments, however, Campbell is not entitled to the credit and his convictions on counts I and II of the indictment must be affirmed on the basis of deficiencies in his reported tax for 1955 and 1956.

Section 905(a) of the Code determines when the credit may be taken and allows the taxpayer an election between the cash or accrual method of reporting. The United States credit for an uncontested foreign tax of course applies to the year in which the foreign tax was levied. In the event the foreign tax is contested by the taxpayer, the Internal Revenue Service has followed Cuba R. R. v. United States, 124 F.Supp. 182 (S.D.N.Y.1954), which requires a taxpayer on an accrual basis to accrue a foreign tax liability as a credit against United States tax in the year in which this liability has been finally determined. However, this accrual has been allowed to “relate back” to the year in which the foreign tax was levied. Rev.Rul. 58-55, 1958-1 Cum.Bull. 266. Thus, if the taxpayer contests his liability for a foreign tax imposed on income in 1960, and this liability is finally adjudicated in the foreign country in 1965, “the credit may not be claimed until 1965 * * *, [but] the foreign tax imposed on 1960 income will be offset against the United States 1960 tax just as if it had accrued in 1960.” Owens, The Foreign Tax Credit 5/3B2, at 328 (1961).

For the Government's case it was only necessary to establish that Campbell had received unreported income and that this non-disclosure had resulted in a tax deficiency. Elwert v. United States, 231 F.2d 928, 931 (9th Cir. *339 1956); United States v. Bender, 218 F.2d 869 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 349 U.S. 920, 75 S.Ct. 660, 99 L.Ed. 1253 (1955). In the present case, the Government established non-disclosure and at least the prima facie existence of a deficiency. At this point Campbell had the burden of going forward to negate the deficiency by showing that it was wrongly computed or was cancelled by another deduction or credit not yet allowed. Elwert v. United States, supra; United States v. Bender, supra.

Moreover, the foreign tax credit is “an act of grace on the part of Congress, and one who seeks the benefit of its provisions must plainly establish his right by showing that he has fulfilled all the conditions upon which the allowance of the credit is made to depend.” Irving Air Chute Co. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 143 F.2d 256, 259 (2d Cir. 1944). In this context, the District Court correctly held that Campbell was not entitled to the foreign tax credit since he failed to make full and timely disclosure of his income from the Campbell-Chibougamau transactions and failed to enter a timely claim for the credit.

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Bluebook (online)
351 F.2d 336, 16 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 5697, 1965 U.S. App. LEXIS 4424, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-ernest-o-d-campbell-ca2-1965.