Smith v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis
1932
Citation profile
How this case has been cited
Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently March 1983 · most notably Estate of Scofield v. Commissioner (1956), Messer v. Commissioner (1969)
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
Relies on Hellebush v. Commissioner · Taylor Oil & Gas Co. v. Commissioner · United States v. Campbell
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 28 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It is well established that the mere dissolution of a corporation does not effect a distribution of its assets among its stockholders, and furthermore that such a distribution is not effected by the turning over of the assets of the corporation to trustees in liquidation who may also be stockholders of the corporation.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“Under section 239(a), Revenue Act of 1926, and article 622, the trustees in dissolution of the Smith Securities Company should have filed a return for the corporation covering the entire calendar year 1925. Instead, the stipulation of facts shows that the return which they filed on Form 1120 covered the period January 12, 1925, to December 31, 1925. This was wrong. But there is no warrant in law for the Commissioner’s action in computing a deficiency for the period January 1 to January 12, 1925, liquidation of the corporation not having been completed by January 12, 1925, but extending throughout and beyond 1025. If there is any deficiency for 1925 it must be for the entire calendar year, and the Commissioner has made no such determination. Of course, if we had sustained the Commissioner’s contention that liquidation of the Smith Securities Company was completed January 12, 1925, his action in computing a deficiency for that period would be correct. But, where a corporation is dissolved during a particular calendar year and its affairs remain in the hands of liquidating trustees for the remainder of the year, we know of nothing in the applicable revenue act and the Commissioner’s regulations thereunder which warrants dividing up the calendar year into two taxable periods, viz., the first period covering the time prior to the date of dissolution of the corporation ancl the second period covering from the time when trustees in liquidation took charge to the end of the calendar ”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.