Peabody v. Eisner

Decision Date03 June 1918
Docket NumberNo. 705,705
Citation247 U.S. 347,38 S.Ct. 546,62 L.Ed. 1152
PartiesPEABODY v. EISNER, Collector of Internal Revenue
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

Mr. Henry W. Clark, of New York City, for plaintiff in error.

Mr. Solicitor General Davis, for defendant in error.

Mr. Justice PITNEY delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case arose under the federal Income Tax Act of October 3, 1913 (38 Stat. 114, 166, c. 16). The controversy is over the first cause of action set up by plaintiff in error in a suit against the collector for the recovery of an additional tax exacted in respect of a certain dividend received by plaintiff in the year 1914 the facts being as follows: On and prior to March 1, 1913, and thenceforward until payment of the dividend in question, petitioner was owner of 1,100 shares (out of a total of 2,000,000 shares outstanding) of common stock of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, of the par value of $100 each, and during the same period the company had large holdings of the common and preferred stocks of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company. On March 2, 1914, the Union Pacific declared and paid an extra dividend upon each share of its common stock, amounting to $3 in cash, $12 in par value of preferred stock of the Baltimore & Ohio, and $22.50 in par value of the common stock of the same company; the result being that petit oner received as his dividend upon his holding of Union Pacific common stock $3,300 in cash, 132 shares of Baltimore & Ohio preferred and 247 1/2 shares of Baltimore & Ohio common stock. In his income return for 1914 he included as taxable income $4.12 per share of this dividend, or $4,532 in all, and paid his tax upon the basis of this return. Afterwards he was subjected to an additional assessment upon a valuation of the balance of his dividend, and this, having been paid under protest, is the subject of the present suit, the theory of which is that the entire earnings, income, gains, and profits from all sources realized by the Union Pacific Railroad Company from March 1, 1913, to March 2, 1914, remaining after the payment of prior charges, did not exceed $4.12 per share of the Union Pacific common stock, and that the cash and Baltimore & Ohio stock disposed of in the extra dividend (so far as they exceeded the value of $4.12 per share of Union Pacific) did not constitute a gain, profit, or income of the Union Pacific, and therefore did not constitute a gain, profit, or income of the plaintiff arising or...

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69 cases
  • Eisner v. Macomber
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • April 16, 1919
    ...v. Hornby, 247 U. S. 339, 38 Sup. Ct. 543, 62 L. Ed. 1149, that a cash dividend extraordinary in amount, and in Peabody v. Eisner, 247 U. S. 347, 38 Sup. Ct. 546, 62 L. Ed. 1152, that a dividend paid in stock of another company, were taxable as income although based upon earnings that accru......
  • Douglas v. Edwards
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit
    • April 7, 1924
    ... ... 330, 38 Sup.Ct. 540, 62 ... L.Ed. 1142, there was, inter alia, a question of real as ... contrasted with technical ownership. In Peabody v ... Eisner, 247 U.S. 347, 38 Sup.Ct. 546, 62 L.Ed. 1152, the ... question was whether ... [298 F. 237] ... a dividend by a corporation of ... ...
  • Follett v. Comm'r of Corps.
    • United States
    • United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court
    • May 28, 1929
    ...has any effect on the question to be decided. Wilder v. Tax Commissioner, 234 Mass. 470, 474, 125 N. E. 689;Peabody v. Eisner, 247 U. S. 347, 350, 38 S. Ct. 546, 62 L. Ed. 1152. That factor is laid to one side. The provisions of the governing statute, G. L. c. 62, § 1, subsection (b), in th......
  • People ex rel. Clark v. Gilchrist
    • United States
    • New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
    • July 9, 1926
    ...stock of a subsidiary corporation or of any corporation other than the one by which the dividend was declared. Peabody v. Eisner, 247 U. S. 347, 38 S. Ct. 546, 62 L. Ed. 1152;U. S. v. Phellis, 257 U. S. 156, 42 S. Ct. 63, 66 L. Ed. 180. It did not apply to dividends of treasury stock, i. e.......
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