Warner v. War Contracts Price Adjustment Board

14 T.C. 1320, 1950 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 153
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedJune 28, 1950
DocketDocket No. 582-R
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 14 T.C. 1320 (Warner v. War Contracts Price Adjustment Board) 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
Warner v. War Contracts Price Adjustment Board, 14 T.C. 1320, 1950 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 153 (tax 1950).

Opinion

OPINION.

Arnold, Judge:

Petitioner 2 challenges not only our jurisdiction to redetermine the excessive profits, if any, but also the respondent’s right to determine excessive profits in the first instance. It contends that section 403 (c) (6), Renegotiation Act of 1943, fixes the jurisdictional amount at a minimum of $500,000, and that its renegotiable sales and all other income for the fiscal period ended December 31, 1944, was less than $250,000. Respondent concedes that unless “common control” existed between the partnership and the corporation, as provided by section 403 (c) (6), Renegotiation Act of 1943, there is no jurisdiction in this Court or the respondent. The pertinent provisions of the section appear in the margin.3

Respondent’s regulations as to common control4 provide in part as follows:

348.4 Tests of “Control”. In determining whether the contractor controls or is controlled by or under common control with another person, the following principles should be followed:
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(5) Other cases: Actual control is a question of fact. Whenever it is believed that actual control exists even though the foregoing conditions are not fulfilled, the matter may be determined by the Department or Service conducting the renegotiation.

Petitioner’s objection to the common control theory is that if the incomes of the two entities are to be combined under this theory, then aggregate costs should also be combined in order to determine combined aggregate profits. It is urged that respondent refused to renegotiate on an over-all aggregate basis, which petitioner says is contrary to the mandatory requirements of the Renegotiation Act of 1943, and insisted on and did renegotiate the corporation and the partnership separately. Petitioner insists that when respondent isolates its income from the corporation’s the jurisdictional floor becomes operative and neither respondent nor this Court can renegotiate its war contracts.

Our concern is the proper interpretation of the statutory language “under common control” when applied to the present facts. In other words, were the corporation and the partnership under common control? This is a factual question, the determination of which depends upon all the facts and circumstances of record. Rochester Telephone Corporation v. United States, 307 U. S. 125. Our findings show that the Warners, father, son and daughter, owned the entire proprietary interests in both business enterprises. Petitioner stresses the father’s stock control of the corporation, by virtue of the voting trust agreement, and the son’s absolute control of the partnership under the partnership agreement with his sister, as precluding common control. The son’s directorship in the corporation, says petitioner, gave him no control, as there were two other directors, nor did his duties as general manager of the corporation give him control, since -the father decided all policy questions. Actually, says petitioner, the son was an employee of the corporation, just as any other general manager is an employee of his firm.

Several answers might be made to petitioner’s contentions, but we point out here that, while the father held voting control under the trust, the son and daughter were the beneficial owners of 80 per cent of the corporate stock and the father, as trustee, was bound to protect and respect their interests. The voting trust was strictly a family arrangement which could have been terminated at any time by common agreement among the members of the Warner family. The son’s management of the corporate business was conceded on the witness stand, and the father’s statements to the draft board regarding the major role played by the son in managing and operating the corporate business leave no doubt in our minds that the son controlled the business. If the father controlled and operated the business by deciding questions of policy which the son carried out as an employee of the corporation, that fact could have been substantiated by the father and perhaps by the sister, neither of whom appeared as a witness. The record indicates, and we are convinced, that the son controlled the operations of both enterprises, and we have accordingly found that the corporation and the partnership were under common control.

Our conclusion as to common control is abundantly supported by the manner in which the two businesses were conducted. Although separate entities, the partnership’s purchases and sales were handled through the corporation. The latter purchased supplies and materials, provided the credit, kept the books, and maintained the inventory for both businesses. The brazing operations were definitely a part of the corporate operations prior to March 1, 1944. And this is true whether the corporation leased the brazing equipment from Thomas W. Warner, Jr., and a partner, other than his sister, or whether it operated as a department or a division within the corporate set-up. No good reason appears why the son and daughter could not have increased their investment in the corporation and enlarged its brazing operations. But, be that as it may, they elected to conduct their brazing business as a separate enterprise, and we must accept the facts as they are; Whatever the reason, the two enterprises operated and functioned as though they were one production unit under the control and guidance of Thomas W, Warner, Jr.

Recent decisions of this Court have involved the question of whether common control existed. In Southland Steel Co., 13 T. C. 652, we had members of a family operating two separate businesses. The respondent determined that the requisite control existed so that he could renegotiate Southland Steel even though the amount of its renegotiable sales was less than the jurisdictional amount of $500,000. We disapproved respondent’s action and refused jurisdiction for the reason that the sister, who was the sole owner of Southland, had only a 3 to 4 per cent stock interest in Butane Equipment Co., and, although an officer and a director of Butane, took no part in its management and attended only one directors’ meeting during a four-year period. By comparison the partners here owned an 80 per cent interest in the corporate business, which the son operated as general manager. See Hug Co. v. War Contracts Price Adjustmentsoard, 14 T. C. 621, where the president and general manager controlled the corporate stockholders and directors and caused the corporation to transfer war contracts to him individually for his personal advantage.

In Moening v. War Contracts Price Adjustment Board, 14 T. C., 589, we held that two partnerships owned equally by two general partners were under common control and that each partnership could be renegotiated, since their combined receipts exceeded the jurisdictional minimum of $500,000, although separately their receipts were less than $500,000. In the course of our opinion we used the following language, which appears singularly apt to the present circumstances:

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Bluebook (online)
14 T.C. 1320, 1950 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 153, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/warner-v-war-contracts-price-adjustment-board-tax-1950.