Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Carter

• Decision Date: 29 November 1948
• Docket Number: Docket 20999.,No. 26,26
• Citation: 170 F.2d 911
• Parties: COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE v. CARTER.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

170 F.2d 911 (1948)

COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE v. CARTER.

No. 26, Docket 20999.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

November 29, 1948.

Theron Lamar Caudle, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Lee A. Jackson and Irving I. Axelrad, Sp. Assts. to Atty. Gen., for petitioner.

John S. Keith, of New York City, for respondent.

Before L. HAND, Chief Judge, and SWAN and CHASE, Circuit Judges.

SWAN, Circuit Judge.

This appeal presents the question whether income received by the taxpayer in 1943 is taxable as long-term capital gain, as the Tax Court ruled, or as ordinary income as the Commissioner contends. The facts are not in dispute. The taxpayer, Mrs. Carter, had owned for ten years all the stock of a corporation which was dissolved on December 31, 1942. Upon its dissolution all of its assets were distributed to her in kind, subject to all its liabilities which she assumed. In the distribution she received property having a fair market value exceeding by about $20,000 the cost basis of her stock, and she reported such excess as a capital gain in her 1942 return and paid the tax thereon. In the corporate liquidation she also received 32 oil brokerage contracts which the parties stipulated had no ascertainable fair market value when distributed. Each contract provided for payment to the corporation of commissions on future deliveries of oil by a named seller to a named buyer. The contracts required no additional services to be performed by the corporation or its distributee, and the future commissions were conditioned on contingencies which made uncertain the amount and time of payment. In 1943 the taxpayer collected commissions of $34,992.20 under these contracts. She reported this sum as a long-term capital gain; the Commissioner determined it to be ordinary income. The Tax Court held it taxable as capital gain. The correctness of this decision is the sole question presented by the Commissioner's appeal.

Mrs. Carter's stock was a "capital asset" as defined by section 117(a) of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C.A. § 117(a). In exchange for her stock, she received the assets of the corporation upon its dissolution. The tax consequences of such a transaction are controlled by section 115(c), 26 U.S.C. A. § 115(c), which provides that "the gain or loss to the distributee resulting from such exchange" shall be determined under section 111, 26 U.S.C.A. § 111, but recognized only to the extent provided in section 112, 26 U.S.C.A. § 112. Turning to section 111(a): the "gain from the sale or other disposition of property" is the excess of "the amount realized therefrom" over the adjusted cost basis provided in section 113 (b), 26 U.S.C.A. § 113(b). Paragraph (b) of section 111 defines the "amount realized from the sale or other disposition of property" to be the sum of money received "plus the fair market value of the property (other than money) received." Paragraph (c) of the same section provides that "In the case of a sale or exchange, the extent to which the gain or loss determined under this section shall be recognized for the purposes of this chapter, shall be determined under the provisions of section 112." That section lays down the general rule, subject to exceptions not pertinent to the case at bar, that "upon the sale or exchange of property" the entire amount of the gain or loss, determined under section 111, shall be recognized. From the foregoing statutory provisions, it is obvious that if the oil brokerage contracts distributed to the taxpayer had then had a "fair market value," such value would have increased correspondingly the "amount realized" by her in exchange for her stock and would have been taxable as long-term capital gain, not as ordinary income. Boudreau v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 5 Cir., 134 F.2d 360; Fleming v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 5 Cir., 153 F.2d 361. The question presented by the present appeal is whether a different result is required when contract obligations having no ascertainable fair market value are distributed in liquidation of a corporation and collections thereunder are made by the distributee in later years.

In answering this question in the negative, the Tax Court relied primarily upon Burnet v. Logan, 283 U.S. 404, 51 S.Ct. 550, 75 L.Ed. 1143. That involved a sale of stock, not a distribution in liquidation, under which the seller received cash and the buyer's promise to make future payments conditioned on contingencies. The cash received did not equal the seller's cost basis for the stock, and the contingencies affecting future payments precluded ascribing a fair market value to the buyer's promise. In later years payments were made which the seller did not return as income. The decision held that she was not required to do so. With respect to such payments, the court said, 283 U.S. at pages 412, 413, 51 S. Ct. at page 552.

"As annual payments on account of extracted ore come in, they can be readily apportioned first as return of capital and later as profit. * * * When the profit, if any, is actually realized, the taxpayer will be required to respond. The consideration for the sale was $2,200,000 in cash and the promise of future money payments wholly contingent upon facts and circumstances not possible to foretell with anything like fair certainty. The promise was in no proper sense equivalent to cash. It had no ascertainable fair market value. The transaction was not a closed...