26 U.S.C. § 661
Section 661 · Deduction for estates and trusts accumulating income or distributing corpus
Amended 4 times on record
Applied in 36 court decisions — leading case Edward Rollert Residuary Trust Genesee Merchants Bank and Trust Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (1985)
Most recently applied in Deutsche Bank AG v. United States (February 2014)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
In any taxable year there shall be allowed as a deduction in computing the taxable income of an estate or trust (other than a trust to which subpart B applies), the sum of—
(1) any amount of income for such taxable year required to be distributed currently (including any amount required to be distributed which may be paid out of income or corpus to the extent such amount is paid out of income for such taxable year); and
(2) any other amounts properly paid or credited or required to be distributed for such taxable year;
but such deduction shall not exceed the distributable net income of the estate or trust.
The amount determined under subsection (a) shall be treated as consisting of the same proportion of each class of items entering into the computation of distributable net income of the estate or trust as the total of each class bears to the total distributable net income of the estate or trust in the absence of the allocation of different classes of income under the specific terms of the governing instrument. In the application of the preceding sentence, the items of deduction entering into the computation of distributable net income (including the deduction allowed under section 642(c)) shall be allocated among the items of distributable net income in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary.
No deduction shall be allowed under subsection (a) in respect of any portion of the amount allowed as a deduction under that subsection (without regard to this subsection) which is treated under subsection (b) as consisting of any item of distributable net income which is not included in the gross income of the estate or trust.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1983—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 98–67 repealed amendments made by Pub. L. 97–248. See 1982 Amendment note below.
1982—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 97–248 provided that, applicable to payments of interest, dividends, and patronage dividends paid or credited after June 30, 1983, subsec. (a) is amended by inserting at end “For purposes of paragraph (1), the amount of distributable net income shall be computed without the deduction allowed by section 642(c).”. Section 102(a), (b) of Pub. L. 98–67, title I, Aug. 5, 1983, 97 Stat. 369, repealed subtitle A (§§301–308) of title III of Pub. L. 97–248 as of the close of June 30, 1983, and provided that the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 (this title) shall be applied and administered (subject to certain exceptions) as if such subtitle A (and the amendments made by such subtitle A) had not been enacted.
1976—Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 94–455 struck out “or his delegate” after “Secretary”.
Cross References
Deduction for trusts distributing current income only, see section 651 of this title.