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18 T.C. 154

Kuchman v. Commissioner

United States Tax Court

Decided April 30, 1952

United States Tax Court · decided 1952-04-30

Relies on Helvering v. Tex-Penn Oil Co. · Commissioner v. Smith · Heiner v. Crosby

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1952-04-30

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently December 1988

1 state decisions

501952196019701980decided

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.

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¶1OPINION.

Opper, Judge:

¶2Respondent’s opinion witnesses and petitioner on brief agree that a purchaser could not be found for the stock in question with its contractual restrictions. Although respondent now seeks to rely on the testimony of one of petitioner’s opinion witnesses, this evidence on analysis is obviously a valuation of the stock, not from the standpoint of a purchaser from petitioner, but as of the time and under the circumstances that the underwriters distributed it. Since fair market value is defined as the price at which the property to be valued with all its attributes would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller generally, Andrew B. C. Dohrmann, 19 B. T. A. 507, 513, and not as the sale might be limited to one specific purchaser, see Estate of Millie Langley Wright, 43 B. T. A. 551; Heiner v. Crosby (C. A. 3), 24 F. 2d 191, we have concluded that the ascertainment of fair market value cannot be founded on this testimony.

¶3The finding has accordingly been made that the property had no ascertainable fair market value in the hands of petitioner. Under these circumstances acquisition of the stock does not justify charging petitioner in the year of its receipt with income in any amount. Helvering v. Tex-Penn Oil Co., 300 U. S. 481, 577; Propper v. Commissioner (C. A. 2), 89 F. 2d 617; Schuh Trading Co. v. Commissioner (C. A. 7), 95 F. 2d 404; Morris D. Kopple, 35 B. T. A. 1056. Cf. Robert Lehman, 17 T. C. 652.

¶4This disposition of the matter as an issue of fact, see Gould Securities Co. v. United States (C. A. 2), 96 F. 2d 780; Blanchard v. Commissioner (C. A. 3), 184 F. 2d 438, makes unnecessary consideration of the legal questions involved in the issuance of stock to an employee at a price below its fair market value. See Delbert G. Geeseman, 38 B. T. A. 258; Norman G. Nicolson, 13 T. C. 690; Wanda V. Van Dusen, 8 T. C. 388, affd. (C. A. 9) 166 F. 2d 647; cf. Commissioner v. Smith, 324 U. S. 177.

¶5Reviewed by the Court.

¶6Decision will be entered for the-petitioners.

KerN, Van Fossan, Haioion, and Raum, JJ., dissent.
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