Smith v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis
192 F.2d 841 · 1951
Citation profile
14 federal appellate · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 24 later decisions — most recently November 1982
14 federal appellate · 1 state decisions
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
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 22
Relies on Cox v. Commissioner · Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Murray · Mahana v. United States · Simonsen v. Emmerling · Corporation Argentina de Productores de Carnes 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 24 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This section was explained in the Report of the Ways and Means Committee (H. Rep. No. 2333, 77th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 71-72 (1942-2 Cum. Bull. 372, 427)) in which it was stated that Section 22 (k) was added: ‘in order to provide in certain cases a new income tax treatment for payments in the nature of or in lieu of alimony or an allowance for support as between divorced or legally separated spouses. These amendments are intended to treat such payments as income to the spouse actually receiving or actually entitled to receive them and to relieve the other spouse from the tax burden upon whatever part of the amount of such payments is under the present law includible in his gross income. In addition, the amended sections will produce uniformity in the treatment of amounts paid in the nature of or in lieu of alimony regardless of variance in the laws of different States concerning the existence and continuance of an obligation to pay alimony.’ * * * * * * * The origin or motive for the 1944 agreement can be traced to no obligation other than one arising from a family or marital relationship. This being so, the conditions of Section 22 (k) are fully satisfied. Congress recognized that the obligation could be set up either by contract or decree. It is stated in the Report of the Committee on Finance (S. Rep. No. 1631, 77th Cong., 2nd Sess. p. 84) : ‘This section applies only where the legal obligation being discharged arises out of the family or marital relationship in recognition”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Walsh v. Comm'r
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.