Zivnuska v. Commissioner

33 T.C. 226, 1959 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 43
CourtUnited States Tax Court
DecidedNovember 9, 1959
DocketDocket No. 61536
StatusPublished
Cited by54 cases

This text of 33 T.C. 226 (Zivnuska 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
Zivnuska v. Commissioner, 33 T.C. 226, 1959 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 43 (tax 1959).

Opinion

Pierce, Judge:

Respondent determined deficiencies against the petitioners in income taxes and additions to tax as follows:

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Tbe issues for decision are:

(1) Whether in tbe taxable year 1951, the principal petitioner incurred a business bad debt loss of $129,496.26 or any other amount, in connection with cash advances made to or through the president of an insolvent corporation of which he was a principal stockholder, for use in satisfying claims against said insolvent corporation.

(2) Whether, by reason of any loss in connection with such advances, petitioner sustained a “net operating loss” within the meaning of sections 23 (s) and 122 of the 1939 Code, in respect of which he is entitled to a net operating loss carryback deduction for the taxable year 1950, and a net operating loss carryover deduction for each of the taxable years 1952 and 1953.

(3) Whether additions to tax should be imposed: Under section 291(a) of the 1939 Code for the years 1950 and 1951, for failure to make and file a timely income tax return for each of said years; under section 293(a) for all taxable years, on the ground that at least part of the deficiency for each of said years is due to negligence, or intentional disregard of rules and regulations but without intent to defraud; and under section 294(d) for all taxable years, for failure to file declarations of estimated tax and for substantial underestimate of estimated taxes.

FINDINGS OF FACT.

Some of the facts have been stipulated. The stipulation of facts, together with the exhibits attached thereto, is incorporated herein by reference.

Petitioners, Eudolf A. and Esther K. Zivnuska, are husband and wife, residing in West Allis, Wisconsin. They filed a joint income tax return for each of the taxable years involved with the collector or district director of internal revenue at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The wife, Esther, is involved herein solely because she was a party to the said joint returns.

Eudolf (hereinafter called the petitioner) was, at the time of the trial, engaged in business as a real estate broker and an investigator of defaulted bonds. In the years 1946 and 1948, which preceded the taxable years involved, he had been employed as a salaried secretary of Concordia Federal Savings and Loan Association, in Milwaukee; and during the taxable years 1950 through 1953, he continued to receive substantial salary from that 'association.

During these same years 1946 through 1948, petitioner also was one of the owners and an active participant in the business of Zivnuska-Kassulke Agency, Inc., in Milwaukee. This Agency operated a real estate and insurance business, in which it arranged for the making of mortgage loans for clients, and also handled the management of such loans and the collection of the payments due thereon. Petitioner personally handled all of such mortgage loans for such Agency; and he shared in the profits of its business.

In addition to the foregoing, the petitioner during the years 1946 through 1948, conducted a building construction and remodeling business, both individually and as the principal party in interest in a building corporation which, is not identified in the record. Also, during the years 1947 and 1948, he actively engaged in the purchase and cutting of standing timber, in the reducing of such timber to lumber, and in the buying and selling of lumber under arrangements with a lumber dealer. From this activity also he derived substantial gains.

Petitioner did not currently file any Federal income tax return for any of the years 1946 through 1949. This was conceded by him on his 1951 return which was the first return filed by him for any year subsequent to 1945. Also he does not have any books of account from which the amounts of his income for any of the years 1946 through 1950 can be ascertained. He has conceded however, in a net worth statement which he filed with his delinquent income tax return for the year 1950, that in each of the years 1946 through 1949 he had net income in an amount more than sufficient to require the filing of a return.

In 1938, petitioner became acquainted with a man named Frank Furedy, who had invented an ultraviolet ray lamp for cosmetic and therapeutic uses. Petitioner at that time expressed a desire to join with Furedy in the business of manufacturing and selling such lamps; and thereupon in said year 1938, he and Furedy created a Wisconsin corporation known as Sun-Kraft, Inc., for such purpose. Petitioner organized the corporation and was its president; and Furedy was vice president and treasurer. The understanding was that petitioner would finance the venture, as funds were required; but after he had invested a total of $6,000, for which he received shares of stock, he in 1938 requested Furedy to relieve him, and he assigned to the latter all his shares of the stock. Furedy, as sole stockholder, then moved the business to Chicago. Subsequently in 1944, Furedy voluntarily reimbursed petitioner for the entire amount of his $6,000 stock investment.

In 1944, Furedy dissolved the above-mentioned Wisconsin corporation, and organized another corporation under the laws of the State of Illinois, to produce the ultraviolet ray lamps. And, within a few months thereafter, he caused this Illinois corporation to be reorganized as a Delaware corporation to carry on the same business. This Delaware corporation, which also was called Sun-Kraft, Inc., and of which Furedy was at all times the president, is the corporation here directly involved and hereinafter referred to as Sun-Kraft.

Sun-Kraft had both common and preferred shares of capital stock; and it issued and sold a substantial number of these shares to the public. Under date of February 5, 1945, Furedy caused 1,000 shares of the common stock to be issued to petitioner, for which petitioner paid no consideration.

During the first 2 years of Sun-Kraft’s existence, its operations were very successful; it derived substantial profits; and it paid dividends to its stockholders in both 1945 and 1946, and also one dividend in the first part of 1947. In 1947, petitioner purchased 10,000 additional shares of Sun-Kraft’s common stock for $10,000 cash; and a stock certificate evidencing the same was issued to him under date of February 17, 1947.

Early in 1947, Sun-Kraft experienced serious financial and operating difficulties. The Federal Food and Drug Administration, acting through legal proceedings instituted by the Department of Justice, obtained an order for seizure of all the ultraviolet ray lamps manufactured by said corporation. This seizure apparently was based on the ground that the lamps were either harmful to users, or that they did not provide the cosmetic or therapeutic benefits attributed to them. Such seizure of the lamps caused creditors of Sun-Kraft to “rush in”; and the corporation, with a view to saving its business and to facilitating the sale of its other products, which included cosmetic creams and sterilization lamps, proceeded to mortgage its real estate and take other steps for obtaining needed working capital.

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Bluebook (online)
33 T.C. 226, 1959 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 43, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/zivnuska-v-commissioner-tax-1959.