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17 T.C. 702

Palmer v. Commissioner

United States Tax Court

Decided October 25, 1951

United States Tax Court · decided 1951-10-25

The owner of one-half the stock of a corporation, in which he was an active officer, made loans to the corporation from time to time. Held: in the circumstances of this case, the uncollectible portion of the loans upon dissolution of the corporation was a non-business bad debt within the meaning of section 23 (k) (4) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Relies on Deputy v. du Pont · Burnet v. Clark · Dalton v. Bowers

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decision will be entered under Rule 50 · Decided 1951-10-25

How this case has been cited

Cited by 27 later decisions — most recently March 1999 · most notably Berwind v. Commissioner (1953), Skarda v. Commissioner (1956)

19019511960197019801990decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1OPINION.

Eaum, Judge:

¶2The conclusion that the business of Greenbrier Farms was not the business of Palmer follows of necessity from such deci- - sions as Jan G. J. Boissevain, 17 T. C. 325; A. Kingsley Ferguson, 16 T. C. 1248; Dalton v. Bowers, 287 U. S. 404; Burnet v. Clark, 287 U. S. 410; and Deputy v. duPont, 308 U. S. 488, 493-494. True, a different result has been reached in some exceptional situations where the taxpayer’s activities in making loans to a number of corporations and financing various enterprises have themselves been regarded as so extensive as to constitute a business. Cf. Weldon D. Smith, 17 T. C. 135; Henry E. Sage, 15 T. C. 299; Vincent G. Campbell, 11 T. C. 510. However, we are satisfied by the facts before us that petitioner’s activities in making loans and financing enterprises were not of such character as to constitute a business. He made loans only to Greenbrier Farms and Greenbrier Products. As far as this record shows, his stock purchases, in several other corporations, were of no different character from those made by any other passive investor in securities. Palmer’s activities, as disclosed by this record, hardly furnish the basis for classifying him as one who was in the business of financing corporate enterprises or other ventures. We conclude that the facts of this case bring it within the Boissevain and related decisions, and are not sufficient to justify the exceptional treatment allowed by the Smith, Sage, and Campbell decisions.

¶3Decision will be entered under Bule 60.

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