United States v. Phellis’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

383 federal appellate · 66 district · 39 state decisions

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 828 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Questions of taxation must be determined by viewing what was actually done, rather than the declared purpose of the participants, and when applying the provisions of the Sixteenth Amendment and income laws enacted thereunder we must regard matters of substance and not mere form.””

   5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Hill v. Commissioner · Borland v. Commissioner

2. “* * * it would be erroneous, we think, to test the question whether an individual stockholder derived income in the true and substantial sense through receiving a part in the distribution of the new shares, by regarding alone the general effect of the reorganization upon the aggregate body of stockholders. The liability of a stockholder to pay an individual income tax must be tested by the effect of the transaction upon the individual. * * *”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Teehan v. United States · Wiegand v. Commissioner

3. ““The ‘gain derived from capital,’ within the definition, is ‘not a gain accruing to capital, nor a growth or increment of value in the investment, but a gain, a profit, something of exchangeable value proceeding from the property, severed from the capital however invested, and coming in, that is, received or drawn by the claimant for his separate use, benefit and disposal.’ ””

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Commissioner v. Simmons Gin Co. · 21 F. Supp. 907 - In Re Owl Drug Co.