Williams v. McGowan’s Empirical Analysis
152 F.2d 570 · 1945
Citation profile
40 federal appellate · 4 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 90 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2004 · most notably Watson v. Commissioner (1953), United States v. Midland-Ross Corp. (1965)
40 federal appellate · 4 district ·
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Bingham's Trust v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue · Francis v. McNeal · Clarke v. Haberle Crystal Springs Brewing Co. · Helvering v. Smith · Stilgenbaur v. United States
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 90 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Upon this sale Williams suffered a loss upon his original two-thirds of the business, but he made a small gain upon the one-third which he had bought from Reynolds’ executrix; and in his income tax return he entered both as items of ‘ordinary-income,’ and not as transactions in ‘capital assets.’ This the Commissioner disallowed and recomputed the tax accordingly; Williams paid the deficiency and sued to recover it in this action. The only question is whether the business was ‘capital assets’ under § 117(a) (1) of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C.A. Int.Rev.Code, § 117(a) (1). * * * “Congress plainly did mean to comminute the elements of a business; plainly it did not regard the whole as ‘capital assets.’ * * * There can of course be no gain or loss in the transfer of cash; and, although Williams does appear to have made a gain of $1072.71 upon the ‘receivables/ the point has not been argued that they are not subject to a depreciation allowance. That we leave open for decision by the district court, if the parties cannot agree. The gain or loss upon every other item should be computed as an item in ordinary income.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“SEC. 453(b). Sales op Realty and Casual Sales op Personalty.— (1) General rule — Income from— (A) a sale or other disposition of real property, or (B) a casual sale or other casual disposition of personal property (other than property of a kind which would properly be included in the inventory of the taxpayer if on hand at the close of the taxable year) for a price exceeding $1,000, may (under regulations prescribed by the Secretary) be returned on the basis and in the manner prescribed in subsection (a). (2) Limitation. — Paragraph (1) shall apply only if in the taxable year of the sale or other disposition— (A) there are no payments, or (B) the payments (exclusive of evidences of indebtedness of the purchaser) do not exceed 30 percent of the selling price.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.