Winship v. Commissioner

8 T.C. 744, 1947 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 246
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedMarch 31, 1947
DocketDocket Nos. 6713, 6714, 6720
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 8 T.C. 744 (Winship 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
Winship v. Commissioner, 8 T.C. 744, 1947 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 246 (tax 1947).

Opinion

OPINION.

Harron, Judge:

Issue I. — The question under this issue relates to the individual income tax liability of Henry Dillon Winship for the taxable year 1941. [Respondent determined that petitioner was not entitled to a deduction in 1941 for a carry-over of a net operating loss sustained in 1940. In 1940 petitioner, as executor of his father’s estate, sold all the remaining assets of the estate. Petitioner contends that at that time the estate of his father was indebted to the revocable trust, which he and his sister set up, in the sum of $130,029.36. This sum represented moneys which the father had advanced to himself when he was executor of the estate of petitioner’s mother and as trustee of the testamentary trust. It also represented moneys advanced to the father and to the father’s estate by the first and second inter vivos trusts.

The moneys advanced to the father had been charged on the books of the estate and trusts to the personal account of the father. The advancements extended back to the time of the death of petitioner’s mother in 1920. In 1930 a balance was struck by petitioner, his sister, and his father, under which they agreed that the father owed to the first inter vivos trust which petitioner and his sister set up the sum of approximately $61,500. Prior to' his death in 1931, the father became indebted to the trust in the further amount of approximately $51,000, and the remaining $17,000 represented money advanced by the trust to the estate of the father and interest at the rate of 6 per cent on the unpaid balance.

Although the father died in 1931, petitioner claims that the debt was a valid obligation and enforceable against the estate of the father up until the time the estate disposed of all of its assets in 1940 for a little over $1,000. At this time, claims petitioner, the debt became worthless and allowable as a deduction for the revocable trust which he and his sister had set up in 1939. The parties are agreed that since the trust was revocable the deductions allowable to the trust are allowable to petitioner in his individual capacity. Petitioner contends, therefore, that the bad debt deduction in 1940 was a net operating loss deduction, one-half of which was allocable to him as one of the two grantors of the revocable trust, and that he is entitled to carry over such deduction for purposes of computing his 1941 income tax liability.

Respondent, on the other hand, contends that the debt became worthless prior to 1940. In addition, he argues that the bad debt deduction, even if the claim against the father was considered valid in 1940, was not attributable to the operation of a trade or business regularly carried on by either the revocable trust or petitioner as an individual. Under such circumstances, he claims that the net operating loss deduction for 1940 is allowable under section 122 (d) (5) of the Internal Revenue Code only to the extent of the amount of gross income not derived from such trade or business. It appears that this limitation would allow petitioner no net operating loss carry-over for the year 1941.

We think that respondent’s position is correct. Even assuming, arguendo, that the claim against the estate of petitioner’s father was not barred by the statute of limitations or voluntarily abandoned by petitioner and his sister, it seems perfectly clear that the claim for which the bad debt deduction was sought was in no way attributable to the operation of a trade or business regularly carried on by petitioner individually or by the revocable trust of which he was a grantor. The father apparently invested the funds which were advanced to him in corporations which he organized for developing patents and for mining and marketing mineral deposits. But neither petitioner nor the trusts had any interest in the corporations or in what the father did with the money given to him. This is not a case where the trusts lost money in managing the various real estate holdings comprising the corpus of the trusts. Any business which the father carried on with the money advanced to him was his own and can not be attributable either to the trusts or to petitioner. This is evident from the fact that petitioner treats the $130,020.36 as a debt owed by the father to the trusts, and not as a loss from the operations of any of the corporations. Accordingly, even assuming that one-half of the $130,029.36 was deductible by petitioner in his 1940 income tax return as a bad debt, this could only offset gross income not derived from a trade or business regularly carried on, for purposes of computing the net operating loss carry-over under section 122.

It is held that petitioner is entitled to no net operating loss carryover deduction for the calendar year 1941.

Issue II. — This issue also relates to the individual income tax liability of petitioner Henry Dillon Winship. The question is whether dividends which petitioner received from Automotive Engineering Corporation in 1941 were taxable solely to petitioner as separate income, or taxable one-half to petitioner and one-half to his wife as community income. This depends on whether petitioner owned the Automotive stock as separate property or community property.

Petitioner was married and domiciled in California prior to the taxable year. The stock in question was part of the estate of petitioner’s deceased father. Petitioner was one of the three principal legatees under the will of his father. Petitioner was also executor of the estate. There is no question that, if petitioner, as executor, had distributed the stock to the legatees under the will, he would have acquired his interest by bequest and the stock would have constituted his separate property under California law. However, petitioner did not distribute the stock as part of the estate of his father. Instead he caused it to be sold and purchased on behalf of himself and his sister for the bid price of $1,000.

The sale took place in 1940. Petitioner was designated on the books of the corporation as the owner of 475 shares of the 950 shares sold; the other shares were placed in the name of his sister. In 1941 the dividends which give rise to the present controversy were declared and paid by the corporation.

At the time petitioner received the dividend income in question he had, under his own testimony and the evidence in the record, not made any payment whatsoever for the stock. It was not until 1943, after his 1941 income tax return was under examination, that petitioner claims to have paid for the stock by paying attorney and accounting fees in connection with his father’s estate in the approximate sum of $1,500. These fees were paid by petitioner’s personal checks, which were drawn on a bank account which contained an undisclosed sum representing in part salaries of petitioner, some of the dividends in question, and the proceeds from the sale of the Automotive stock. Petitioner’s sister apparently reimbursed him for part of the fees paid as her contribution to the cost of the stock.

Respondent determined that petitioner had not acquired the stock as community property prior to or during the taxable year 1941.

Petitioner claims that the stock was not acquired by gift or devise and claims that respondent has offered no testimony whatsoever to overcome the presumption that the stock acquired was community property.

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Related

Olson v. Commissioner
10 T.C. 458 (U.S. Tax Court, 1948)
Winship v. Commissioner
8 T.C. 744 (U.S. Tax Court, 1947)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
8 T.C. 744, 1947 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 246, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/winship-v-commissioner-tax-1947.