Wm. T. Stover Co. v. Commissioner

27 T.C. 434, 1956 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 25
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedNovember 30, 1956
DocketDocket No. 46766
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 27 T.C. 434 (Wm. T. Stover Co. 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
Wm. T. Stover Co. v. Commissioner, 27 T.C. 434, 1956 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 25 (tax 1956).

Opinion

OPINION.

TuhneR, Judge:

With respect to the $784.91 expended for the round-trip airplane ticket to England at the behest of the Arkansas Medical Society, we are unable to distinguish this case in principle from Textile Mills Securities Corporation v. Commissioner, 314 U. S. 326, and on the basis of the pronouncements of the Supreme Court of the United States in its opinion in that case, that issue is decided for the respondent.

With respect to the cabin cruiser owned by petitioner and maintained and operated on Lake Hamilton, the facts show that the boat was used in part for entertainment in the promotion of petitioner’s business and in part for the personal pleasures of its stockholders. They further show that except for payments for gasoline when Stover was using the boat personally, petitioner paid all of the cost of operation and maintenance, and in its returns it deducted as ordinary and necessary expenses in carrying on its business the entire amounts of the expenditures incurred by it for such operation and maintenance. It is the claim of petitioner that respondent erred in allowing the deduction of only one-half of the expenditures so made and that the claimed deductions should have been allowed in full.

The evidence falls short of establishing error on the part of the respondent. The records maintained and the proof submitted do not even closely indicate the portion of the expenditures which should be attributed to petitioner’s business and the portion which was personal to its stockholders. The signatures in the guest book supply the only basis, aside from the broad assertions of Stover, which assertions other proof shows were not accurate, for arriving at any reasonably accurate allocation of the use of the boat as between petitioner’s business and the personal pleasures of the stockholders. We are satisfied, however, from Stover’s own testimony, that the guest book does not supply the whole story. He admitted that all guests did not sign. Some of the signatures are out of order according to dates, and we do not know, on a comparative basis, the extent of the use of the boat by the sons of another stockholder. Snch being the state of the record, we are unable to say that the respondent erred in disallowing one-half of the deduction claimed for each year, and for failure to sustain its burden of proof, petitioner’s claim is denied.

In 1949 and 1950, petitioner made contributions to building funds of three Arkansas hospitals, and claimed deduction therefor in its returns for the said years, as expenses of operation. In his determinations of deficiency, the respondent disallowed the deductions so claimed.

On the ground that the contributions were made in promotion of its business, and relying on the testimony of Stover, its president, to the effect that the making of the contributions was “coldblooded business” and that its business with the hospitals increased thereafter, petitioner in this proceeding contends that the contributions were ordinary and necessary expenses in the operation of its business, within the meaning of section 23 (a) (1) (A) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, and are deductible thereunder as claimed.

It is the position of the respondent that the amounts in question are deductible under section 23 (q) of the Code only, and since the deductions under that section are limited to an amount which does not exceed 5 per cent of the taxpayer’s net income, computed without benefit of section 23 (q)4 deductions, and a deduction of such 5 per cent has been allowed under section 23 (q) for each of the years herein, his dis-allowance of the deductions in question must be sustained.

In our view, the position of the respondent is well taken. It is not disputed that each of the three hospitals was of such character that contributions by a corporation to them would be allowable deductions to the corporation under section 23 (q) (2), and in section 23 (a) (1) (B)5 we find the categorical provision that no deduction shall be allowable to a corporation under section 23 (a) (1) (A) “for any contribution or gift which would be allowable under subsection (q) were it not for the 5 per centum limitation therein contained.”

Section 23 (q) was first enacted in the Revenue Act of 1935. Prior to that time, there was no specific provision granting deductions to corporations for contributions or donations made to organizations such as the three hospitals herein, and if deduction of such donations or contributions was to be had, it was necessary that they have such relation to the operation of the corporate business as to make them ordinary and necessary expenses in the operation thereof. With the enactment of section 23 (q), contributions and donations became deductible by corporations up to the limit prescribed, without regard to whether they were sufficiently closely related to the corporate business as to reasonably constitute them expenses thereof. Prior to 1938, however, the revenue laws contained no counterpart of section 23 (a) (1) (B) above. That provision first appeared as section 23 (a) (2) of the Revenue Act of 1938, and since that time contributions and donations deductible under section 23 (q) have not been deductible as ordinary and necessary expenses under section 23 (a) (1) (A).6

It is too well settled to require the citation of authorities that deductions from gross income are matters of legislative grace, and by section 23 (a) (1) (B), Congress has made it clear that the contributions in question are not deductible under section 23 (a) (1) (A), but must be lumped with other contributions in arriving at the amount deductible under section 23 (q). The respondent was not in error in his determination.

In support of its claim that the contributions to the three hospitals are deductible under section 23 (a) (1) (A), the petitioner cites Fairmount Creamery Corporation v. Helvering, 89 F. 2d 810; B. Manischewitz Co., 10 T. C. 1139; Singer Sewing Machine Co., 5 T. C. 851, affd. 158 F. 2d 982; and A. L. Killian Co., 44 B. T. A. 169, affd. 128 F. 2d 433. The Fairmount Oreamery, Singer Sewing Machine, and Killian cases all involved contributions made in years prior to the enactment of the Revenue Act of 1938, when there was no provision in the statute comparable to section 23 (a) (1) (B) herein, and as a consequence, those cases are of no controlling importance in the instant case. The contributions under consideration in the Mani-schetoitz case were made in the fiscal year ended July 31, 1943, and that case might on first impression appear to be in point. It is to be noted, however, that section 23 (q) applies to corporations, trusts, foundations, etc., created or organized in the United States or in any possession thereof, or under the law of the United States, or of any State or territory, or of the District of Columbia, or of any possession of the United States. In the Manischewitz case, we pointed out that the recipient of the contribution was the Hebrew Theological Seminary in Palestine, and that the deductibility of the contribution in question was not governed by section 23 (q), but by section 23 (a). The Manischewitz case likewise is not in point.

With respect to his disallowance of the $2,000 paid to Moody Moore, the respondent is also sustained.

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Wm. T. Stover Co. v. Commissioner
27 T.C. 434 (U.S. Tax Court, 1956)

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Bluebook (online)
27 T.C. 434, 1956 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 25, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wm-t-stover-co-v-commissioner-tax-1956.