Ashforth v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 federal appellate ·

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

1. “These proceedings indicate that the words “ at any time during the taxable year ” were inserted for a definite purpose. They limited the application of the statute to those cases where the grantor had reserved in the trust agreement an unconditional power by the exercise of which during any taxable year he could control or appropriate the income derived from the trust during that year and which was payable to another. According to the section, as originally proposed, the mere reservation of the power of revocation was sufficient to render the income from the trust taxable to the grantor, and it was deemed wise to add provisions excepting from the operation of the law income of a trust as to which the grantor’s power of revocation was subject to a condition that had not happened. It is this power to reach and apply the income at the grantor’s option that renders it subject to the tax, regardless of whether or not he exercised the power. It was the reservation of this power, control, or “ command over the property taxed ” that was advanced in Corliss v. Bowers, supra, as adequate grounds upon which to base the constitutionality of section 219 (g). The scope of the statute, as the Commissioner construed it, would be as wide as the scope of the section originally proposed by the House. Under such a construction it would make no difference when the power of revocation could be exercised, whether during the taxable year or prior to the taxable year; if the power of revocation is th”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. Canfield v. Commissioner