United States v. Anderson’s Empirical Analysis
269 U.S. 422 · 1926
Citation profile
808 federal appellate · 111 district · 62 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,977 later decisions (111 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2019 · most notably Helvering v. Taylor (1935), Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. South Texas Lumber Co (1948)
808 federal appellate · 111 district · 62 state decisions — followed in 18 states
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 Gould v. Gould · Maryland Casualty Co. v. United States · Doyle v. Mitchell Bros. · United States v. Merriam
Cited together with Security Flour Mills Co. v. Commissioner · Dixie Pine Products Co. v. Commissioner · Lucas v. American Code Co. · Spring City Foundry Co. v. Commissioner · Reynolds v. Cooper
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 1,977 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“all the events * * * occur which fix the amount of the tax and determine the liability of the taxpayer to pay it.”
45 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““A consideration of the difficulties involved in the preparation of an income account on a strict basis of receipts and disbursements for a business of any complexity, which had been experienced in the appli cation of the Acts of 1909 and 1913 and which made it necessary to authorize by departmental regulation, a method of preparing returns not in terms provided for by those statutes, indicates with no uncertainty the purpose of sections 12(a) and 13(d) of the Act of 1916. It was to enable taxpayers to keep their books and make their returns according to scientific accounting principles, by charging against income earned during the taxable period, the expenses incurred in and properly attributable to the process of earning income during that period; and indeed, to require the tax return to be made on that basis, if the taxpayer failed or was unable to make the return on a strict receipts and disbursements basis.””
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A corporation * * * keeping accounts upon any basis other than that of actual receipts and disbursements, unless such other basis does not clearly reflect its income, may, subject to regulations made by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, make its return upon the basis upon which its accounts are kept, in which case the tax shall be computed upon its income as so returned.”
4 later decisions 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.