Burton-Sutton Oil Co. v. Commissioner of Int. Rev.

• Decision Date: 15 October 1945
• Docket Number: No. 11275,11285.,11275
• Citation: 150 F.2d 621
• Parties: BURTON-SUTTON OIL CO., Inc., v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE v. BURTON-SUTTON OIL CO., Inc.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

150 F.2d 621 (1945)

BURTON-SUTTON OIL CO., Inc., v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE.

COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE v. BURTON-SUTTON OIL CO., Inc.

Nos. 11275, 11285.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

July 6, 1945.

Writ of Certiorari Denied October 15, 1945.

Norman F. Anderson, Elias R. Kaufman, and W. W. Thompson, all of Lake Charles, La., for petitioner.

Bernard Chertcoff, Sewall Key, and J. Louis Monarch, Sp. Assts. to the Atty. Gen., Samuel O. Clark, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., and J. P. Wenchel, Chief Counsel, Bureau of Internal Revenue, and Charles E. Lowery, Sp. Atty., Bureau of Internal Revenue, both of Washington, D. C., for respondent.

Before HOLMES, McCORD, and LEE. Circuit Judges.

Writ of Certiorari Denied October 15, 1945. See 66 S.Ct. 93.

HOLMES, Circuit Judge.

These petitions for review, one brought by the taxpayer and the other by the Commissioner, involve income and excess profits taxes for the years 1936, 1937, and 1938. They are from the same decision of the Tax Court, and were consolidated in this court for hearing and disposition.

The issue on each petition arises out of the ownership and operation by the taxpayer of a mineral lease covering a section of land in Louisiana upon which, at the time here involved, 19 producing oil wells had been drilled. The agreement by which the taxpayer acquired its working interest required it to pay 50% of its net profits therefrom to its transferor in addition to royalties. The question raised by the taxpayer is whether it was entitled to deduct from its taxable income the amount of the net profits so paid.

The Commissioner's disallowance of this deduction was properly sustained by the Tax Court. We need only to reiterate here the principle announced in Quintana Petroleum Co. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 5 Cir., 143 F.2d 588, that a covenant to pay a percentage of net profits from production does not grant an economic interest in oil in place.¹ The payments thereunder were not made with respect to the royalty interests retained by the taxpayer, but were paid as consideration for the execution of the conveyance.² The purchase price of a capital asset is not deductible as a business expense, and income is none the less income by reason of its use for investment purposes.³

It is argued that the taxpayer and its transferor were joint adventurers in the enterprise. Since complete control of all operations of the property was in the taxpayer, and under the agreement all operating losses were to be borne by it, we deem this contention to be untenable.

The appeal by the Commissioner assails an allowance of $27,564.61 for legal expenses during the year ending February 28, 1938. The taxpayer deducted this amount in its tax return as an ordinary and necessary business expense; the Commissioner disallowed the same on the ground that the disbursements were capital expenditures. The Tax Court ruled that these outlays were deducted as ordinary and necessary business expenses under Section 23(a), Revenue Act of 1936, 26 U.S.C.A. Int.Rev. Acts, page 827. There was no dispute about the facts or any inference to be drawn from the facts, nor was there any intricate matter of administration to be decided. The question was purely one of law: simply a matter of applying to undisputed facts a regulation of unquestioned validity.

The Tax Court overlooked entirely the admitted fact that no interest of the taxpayer was sought to be appropriated, since it had rights only in the underlying minerals, and the condemnation proceeding did not purport to disturb such rights. The condemnation petition expressly provided that the estate to be appropriated for public use was the full fee-simple title subject to existing oil, gas, and mineral rights. The taxpayer proved to all interested parties that such survey was inaccurate and that the proper boundary lines were those which the taxpayer had claimed. The judgment of condemnation described the property in accordance with the existence of the section lines as contended by the taxpayer.

There was no question concerning the right of the United States to take the property that it needed. The taxpayer had no interest in that property, and no legal standing to oppose such taking. The only matter in which the taxpayer was interested related to its title to the minerals and the clouds cast thereon by the survey and condemnation proceeding. All of the expenditures for which deduction is claimed by the taxpayer were made to disperse those clouds. The taxpayer was not to be affected by the impending condemnation; its proprietary interest in the minerals would remain the same regardless of the appropriation of the surface of the land for public use.

The costs incurred by the taxpayer in the effort to establish its title to the minerals were deductible only if they constituted ordinary and necessary business expenses within the meaning of Section 23(a) of the Revenue Act of 1936. Section 24(a) (2) of that act, 26 U.S.C.A. Int.Rev.Acts, page 831, provides that, in computing net income, no deduction shall in any case be allowed in respect of any amount paid out for permanent improvements or betterments made to increase the value of any property. Article 24-2 of Treasury Regulation 94, promulgated under the Revenue Act of 1936, provides that the cost of defending or perfecting title to property constitutes a part of the cost of the property and is not a deductible expense. The validity of this regulation is not assailed; the question is one of its application. As stated by this court in Jones' Estate v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 5 Cir., 127 F.2d 231, 232: "Consistently since 1916 the Treasury Regulations have provided that the cost of defending or perfecting title to property constitutes a part of the cost of the property and is not a deductible expense. Congressional approval of this interpretation by re-enactment of the applicable revenue statutes in successive acts in identical language gives to the regulation the efficacy of law."

We think no conclusion can reasonably be drawn from the undisputed facts except that the payments here were made in defending or perfecting the title to the oil, gas, and mineral rights of the taxpayer. If the taxpayer had decided to institute suit to quiet title to or remove the cloud that had been cast upon its mineral rights, its expenses in doing so would not have been deductible. In Jones' Estate v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, supra, it was said: "It is immaterial that this petitioner was required to defend the title long after the property was first acquired, and at a time when he reasonably might have expected to incur no additional title expense. The nature of a suit to cancel a cloud upon title to real estate remains constant whether the action be prosecuted at the time, or long after, the acquisition of title. It is a contest involving the ownership of the property itself, and the title to property held for profit is a capital asset."

Similarly, if the Orange Cameron Land Company had been the moving party and had questioned taxpayer's rights in the oil and gas deposits where located, the expenses incurred in defending the suit would have been a capital outlay.⁴ Any sums that the taxpayer might have paid to compromise or to obtain dismissal of the litigation would not have been considered an ordinary business expense.⁵

The fact that the taxpayer chose the negotiations in the condemnation proceedings as the forum in which to establish the validity of its rights is not a differentiating consideration. What is material is that the taxpayer considered it necessary to prove that it had the right to produce oil from the property in question. Its expenses in accomplishing this were just as much capital investments as if it had proceeded to do so in any other manner. The language used in Farmer v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, supra, is applicable here. There the court said, 126 F.2d at page 544: "The authorities quite generally hold that expenditures made in defense of a title upon which depends the right to receive oil and gas royalty payments are capital expenditures and not deductible as ordinary business expenses. Citations omitted. Petitioners did more than to litigate the right to receive oil royalty payments. The title to the oil and gas lease under which they received these payments depended upon the title to the land. Without title to the land they had nothing. It was therefore necessary for them to defend and establish the title to the land in order to retain their interest in the oil and gas."

The deduction claimed by the taxpayer was not spent by it in resisting the condemnation of its property or to obtain just compensation for the same. The taxpayer never made any claim for compensation. Its property was not being taken, and consequently its value was not in controversy. The taxpayer was neither a necessary nor an indispensable party to the proceeding under any survey, accurate or inaccurate. It was at all times a mere nominal party, joined for the sake of safety, and could have entered a disclaimer at a nominal cost.⁶

It was not an ordinary and necessary business expense for a defendant who was only a formal party, who was making no claim for damages, whose property was not sought to be taken, who had no interest in the subject matter, to spend $27,564.61 in defense of a condemnation suit. A fee of $25,000 for the services of an attorney was included in the above amount, and the sole purpose of the expenditure was to remove a cloud from the title to mineral rights and to prevent the darkening of that cloud. Whether such an expense is deductible in most instances is for the Tax Court, but here the facts are not in dispute and there is a valid treasury regulation that denies the right to deduct an outlay that is essentially one of a capital nature. In construing the regulation as not controlling where it was clearly applicable, the Tax Court committed an...