Old Mission Portland Cement Co v. Helvering

• Decision Date: 03 December 1934
• Docket Number: No. 107,107
• Parties: OLD MISSION PORTLAND CEMENT CO. v. HELVERING, Commissioner of Internal Revenue
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

293 U.S. 289

55 S.Ct. 158

79 L.Ed. 367

OLD MISSION PORTLAND CEMENT CO.

v HELVERING, Commissioner of Internal Revenue.

No. 107.

Argued Nov. 13, 1934.

Decided Dec. 3, 1934.

Mr. George E. H. Goodner, of Washington, D.C. for petitioner.

The Attorney General and Mr. Robert N. Anderson, of Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Mr. Justice STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this case certiorari was granted, 293 U.S. 544, 55 S.Ct. 79, 79 L.Ed. —-, 'limited to the question of the right of the taxpayer to deductions (a) on account of amortization of bond discount and (b) on account of contributions to the San Francisco Community Chest.'

During each of the years 1923 to 1926, inclusive, petitioner and two corporations affiliated with it filed consolidated income tax returns on the accrual basis. In each year one of the affiliated corporations deducted, from gross income, amortized discount allowed upon an issue of its bonds in 1912. In computing the taxable income to be assessed to petitioner, the parent corporation, under the applicable Revenue Acts of 1921 (chapter 136, 42 Stat. 227), 1924 (chapter 234, 43 Stat. 253), and 1926 (chapter 27, 44 Stat. 9), the Commissioner refused to allow the deduction of so much of the amortized discount as was applicable to bonds, issued by its affiliate, which petitioner had acquired by purchase. He also refused to allow credit for the contributions to the Community Chest as not an ordinary and necessary expense, deduction of which the statute permits. His action was sustained both by the Board of Tax Appeals, 25 B.T.A. 305, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 69 F.(2d) 676.

1. It is no longer open to question that amortized bond discount may be deducted in the separate return of a single taxpayer. See Helvering v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 293 U.S. 282, 55 S.Ct. 165, 79 L.Ed. 363, decided this day. But the government insists that the deduction by one affiliate, in a consolidated return, of amortized discount upon its bonds which are owned by another affiliate, involves an 'intercompany transaction' which, under the applicable statutes and regulations, must be eliminated from the computation of the tax in order to arrive at the true taxable income.

Section 240 of the Revenue Act of 1921 (42 Stat. 260), and section 240, Revenue Acts 1924, and 1926 (26 USCA § 993 and note) extends to affiliated corporate taxpayers the privilege of making a consolidated tax return, subject to such restrictions as may be imposed by treasury regulations. The purpose of the section was to provide a method of computing the tax upon the true net income of what is in practical effect a single business enterprise, with substantially common ownership, as though it were that of a single taxpayer, despite the fact that it is carried on by separate corporations whose tax would otherwise be independently computed. See Burnet v. Aluminum Goods Manufacturing Co., 287 U.S. 544, 547, 53 S.Ct. 227, 77 L.Ed. 484; Handy & Harman v. Burnet, 284 U.S. 136, 140, 52 S.Ct. 51, 76 L.Ed. 207; Atlantic City Electric Co. v. Commissioner, 288 U.S. 152, 154, 53 S.Ct. 383, 77 L.Ed. 667; Woolford Realty Co., Inc., v. Rose, 286 U.S. 319, 52 S.Ct. 568, 76 L.Ed. 1128; Appeal of Gould Coupler Co., 5 B.T.A. 499, 514—516; cf., Treasury Regulations 62, Art. 636, under the 1921 act; T.R. 65, Art. 636, under the 1924 act; T.R. 69, Art. 635, under the 1926 act.

Each of the regulations controlling consolidated returns, under the applicable Revenue Acts, directs that only one specific credit of $2,000, which section 236(b), Revenue Act 1921 (42 Stat. 257), and section 236(b), Revenue Acts 1924, 1926 (26 USCA § 988 and note) allows to each individual taxpayer, shall be allowed to the consolidated group, and provides that 'subject to the provisions covering the determination of taxable net income of separate corporations, and subject further to the elimination of intercompany transactions (whether or not resulting in any profit or loss to the separate corporations), the consolidated taxable net income shall be the combined net income of the several corporations consolidated.' It is by the elimination of intercompany trans- actions from the computation, in order to ascertain 'the combined net income of the several corporations consolidated,' that the purpose of the statute is effected. See Burnet v. Aluminum Goods Manufacturing Co., supra, 287 U.S. 549, 550, 53 S.Ct. 227, 77 L.Ed. 484. The government, having thus conferred upon groups of affiliated taxpayers the privilege of computing their tax as though they were a single taxpaying entity, it would require plain language in statute and regulations to support the conclusion that it was also intended that they should retain the advantages which, before affiliation, attached peculiarly to their status as independent tax computing entities. The regulations are aimed at the prevention of a double advantage, to be secured only if affiliated taxpayers are allowed to treat themselves, at the same moment, as one or many, according to their convenience for purposes of tax computation.

Amortized bond discount is deductible from the taxpayer's gross income only by way of anticipation of payment of the bonds at maturity. It is then that the taxpayer pays the difference, between the amount realized upon the sale of the bonds and their par value, which is the subject of the amortization. Helvering v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., supra. Here the payment anticipated is from one affiliate to another, an intercompany transaction. If we eliminate it from the computation of income upon the consolidated return, as the regulation directs, there is no anticipated payment of the discount to be amortized and no basis for the deduction.

A single taxpayer who had purchased his own bonds before maturity could not afterwards deduct, from gross income, the amortized discount on the bonds, in anticipation of their payment at maturity. This is equally the case where the obligor and obligee are affiliated corporations claiming the benefit of a statute which permits them to compute their tax as though they were one. It is true that in either case the bondholder may sell his bonds before maturity, and thus renew his obligation to pay them. But in neither is the taxpayer in a position to require the government to anticipate an...