D. W. Dawkins v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Ashley Milk Co. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue’s Empirical Analysis
1956
Citation profile
43 federal appellate ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 69 later decisions — most recently April 1990 · most notably Clark v. Commissioner (1959), Cohen v. United States (1962)
43 federal appellate ·
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 · 26 U.S.C. § 7482
Relies on Corliss v. Bowers · North American Oil Consolidated v. Burnet · Rutkin v. United States · Burnet v. Wells · Healy 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 69 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““An unlawful gain, as well as a lawful one, constitutes taxable income when its recipient has such control over it that, as a practical matter, he derives readily realizable economic value from it. Burnet v. Wells, 289 U.S. 670 , 678, 53 S.Ct. 761 , 764, 77 L.Ed. 1439 , 1443; Cor-liss v. Bowers, 281 U.S. 376 , 378, 50 S.Ct. 336 , 337, 74 L.Ed. 916 , 917. That occurs when cash, as here, is delivered by its owner to the taxpayer in a manner which allows the recipient freedom to dispose of it at will, even though it may have been obtained by fraud and his freedom to use it may be assailable by someone with a better title to it. “Such gains are taxable in the yearly period during which they are realized. * * * There is no adequate reason why assailable unlawful gains should be treated differently in this respect from assailable lawful gains. Certainly there is no reason for treating them more leniently. United States v. Sullivan, 274 U.S. 259 , 263, 47 S.Ct. 607 , 71 L.Ed. 1037 , 1039, 51 A.L.R. 1020 .””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Appellant makes much of the fact that the government has not fixed a label of some kind on the funds that he took from his corporation. It is not necessary to describe them as additional salary, illicit bonuses, or commissions, or anything more than wrongful diversions, since, as above mentioned, substance controls over form, and taxation is concerned with the actual command over the property taxed.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The status of the funds is determined as of the date of taking.... The Tax Court was warranted in treating the diverted sales receipts as income to Dawkins in the year in which the diversions occurred....”
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.