United States v. Ludey
| Decision Date | 16 May 1927 |
| Docket Number | No. 289,289 |
| Citation | 71 L.Ed. 1054,274 U.S. 295,47 S.Ct. 608 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. LUDEY |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
The Attorney General and Mr. T. H. Lewis, Jr., of Washington, D. C., for the United States.
Mr. Wayne Johnson, of New York City, for respondent.
Ludey brought this suit in the Court of Claims to recover an amount exacted as additional taxes for 1917, under the income and excess profits provisions of the Revenue Act of 1916 (Act Sept. 8, 1916, c. 463, tit. 1, 39 Stat. 756-759), as amended by the Revenue Act of 1917 (Act Oct. 3, 1917, c. 63, 40 Stat. 300, 329). The tax was assessed on the alleged gain from a sale in 1917 of oil-mining properties which had been owned and operated by him for several years. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue determined that there was a gain on the sale of $26,904.15. Ludey insists that there was a loss of $14,777.33. The amount sued for is the tax assessed on the difference. Whether there was the gain or the loss depends primarily upon whether deductions for depletion and depreciation are to be made from the original cost in determining gain or loss on sale of oil-mining properties. The question is one of statutory construction or application. The Court of Claims entered judgment for the plaintiff. 61 Ct. Cl. 126. This court granted a writ of certiorari. 271 U. S. 651, 46 S. Ct. 473, 70 L. Ed. 1132.
The properties consisted, besides mining equipment, in part of oil land held in fee, in part of oil-mining leases. The aggregate original cost of the properties was $95,977.33.1 33Of this amount $30,977.33 was the cost of the equipment used in the business; $65,000 the cost of the oil reserves. The 1917 sale price was $81,200. For the purpose of determining the cost of the properties sold in 1917 the Commissioner deducted from the original cost $10,465.16 on account of depreciation of the equipment through wear and tear, and $32,258.81 on account of depletion of the reserves through the taking out of oil by the plaintiff, after March 1, 1913. There was no dispute of fact concerning the correctness of the estimates upon which these deductions were made. The finding of the depletion was in accordance with the method of computation employed by the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and there was no objection specifically to the method of computation. But Ludey insisted that the amount of depletion, if any, could not be found or stated as a fact, since, in the nature of the case, it was impossible to determine how much oil was recoverable, either when he acquired the properties or when he disposed of them. The finding of the depreciation was, likewise, in accordance with the method of computation employed by the bureau; and there was no objection to the method of computation. But Ludey insisted also in respect to depreciation that the property was, as a matter of law, unchanged in character and quantity throughout the period of operation.
Until 1924, none of the Revenue Acts provided in terms that, in computing the gain from a sale of any property, a deduction shall be made from the original cost on account of depreciation and depletion during the period of operation. 2 But ever since March 1, 1913, the Revenue Acts have required that gains from sales made within the tax year shall be included in the taxable income of the year, and that losses on sales may be deducted from gross income. And each of the acts has provided that, in computing the taxable income derived from operating a mine, there may be made a deduction from the gross income for the depreciation and that some deduction may be made for depletion. The applicable provisions of section 5(a) of the Revenue Act of 1916 (Comp. St. § 6336e) concerning deductions to be allowed in computing net income are these:
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Ludey does not deny that Congress has power to require that deductions for depreciation and depletion shall be made from the original cost when determining the cost of oil properties sold. His contention is that, at the time of the sale in question, Congress had not in terms re- quired the deductions in the case of any property and that special reasons exist why the acts should be construed as not requiring the deductions in the case of oil wells. He urges that a corporation organized for the purpose of utilizing a wasting property, like an iron mine, is not deemed to have divided a part of its capital, merely because it has distributed the net proceeds of its mining operations; that this is true even where the necessary result of the operation is a reduction of the mineral reserve; that, a fortiori, the proceeds of oil mining are to be deemed income, not a partial return of capital, since there is no ownership in oil until it is actually reduced to possession; that a purchase of an oil reserve cannot be likened to the purchase of a certain number of barrels of oil; that an oil reserve is not a reservoir; that Congress allowed the deduction from gross income for depreciation and depletion probably as a reward in an extrahazardous enterprise in order to encourage new producing properties; and that to allow the deductions would result, in the event of a sale of the property, in taking back the rewards so offered.
The government contends that in operating the properties Ludey disposed, in the form of oil, of part of his capital assets; that in the extraction of the oil he consumed so much of the equipment as was represented by the depreciation and disposed of so much of the oil reserves as was represented by the depletion; that the sale of the properties made by him in 1917 was not a sale of all of the property represented by the original cost of $95,977.33, since physical equipment to the amount of the depreciation and oil reserves to the amount of the depletion had been taken from it during the preceding years; and that, for this reason, the cost to plaintiff of the net property sold in 1917 was not $95,977.33, but $53,258.36.
The Court of Claims did not consider whether ordinarily deductions for depreciation and for depletion from the original cost would be proper in determining whether there had been a profit on a sale of property. It held that no deduction from original cost should be made here because of the nature of oil mining properties. The deduction for depletion was in its opinion, wrong, because oil properties are in essence merely the right to extract from controlled land such oil as the owner of the right can find and reduce to possession; because the existence of oil in any parcel of land is dependent upon the movement which the oil makes from time to time under the surface; and because whether there is oil in place which can be reduced to possession, and if so, how much, cannot be definitely determined. It held that, in the case at bar, the right to explore for and take out oil may actually have been more valuable at the time of the sale than at the time of the purchase; and that, for this reason, the removal of the oil by plaintiff during the years of operation cannot be said to have depleted the capital. It held that the depreciation was not deductible, because wear and tear of equipment was an expense or incident of the business.
We are of opinion that the revenue acts should be construed as requiring deductions for both depreciation and depletion when determining the original cost of oil properties sold. Congress, in providing that the basis for determining gain or loss should be the cost or the 1913 value, was not attempting to provide an exclusive formula...
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