Howard v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis
1953
Citation profile
23 federal appellate · 1 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 44 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 1998 · most notably United States v. Gilmore (1963), Smith's Estate v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (1953)
23 federal appellate · 1 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
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 23
Relies on United States v. United States Gypsum Co. · Bingham's Trust v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue · Lykes v. United States · Baer v. Commissioner
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 44 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“* * * Legal expenses do not become deductible merely because they are paid for services which relieve a taxpayer of liability. That argument would carry us too far.- It would mean that the expense of defending almost any claim would be deductible by a taxpayer on the ground that such defense was made to help him keep clear of liens whatever income-producing property he might have. * * * Section 28(a)(2) never has been so interpreted by us. It has been applied to expenses on the basis of their immediate purposes rather than upon the basis of the remote contributions they might make to the conservation of a taxpayer’s income-producing assets by reducing his general liabilities. See McDonald, v. Commissioner, supra, * * *”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Non-trade or non-business expenses. In the case of an individual, all the ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year for the production or collection of income, or for the management, conservation, or maintenance of property held for the production of income.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In Baer v. Commissioner, * * * the showing was of expense to the taxpayer in resisting a claim which threatened immediate destruction, to a substantial extent, of his capacity to earn income. The legal expense incurred was thought to bear a direct relationship to the management and conservation of property held for the production of income. * * * The Baer case, we think, affords a good illustration of the proper application of the statute.””
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.