Dunn III v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue’s Empirical Analysis
Citation profile
3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 17 later decisions — most recently November 2020
3 state decisions
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
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 1245 · 26 U.S.C. § 6501 · 26 U.S.C. § 6511 · 26 U.S.C. § 7430
Relies on Cohan v. Commissioner · United States v. Cartwright · Powers v. Commissioner · T-H New Orleans Limited Partnership Financial Security Assurance Inc v. T-H New Orleans Limited Partnership · Estate of Dd Palmer Ah v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue
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 17 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Absolute certainty in such matters is usually impossible and is not necessary; the Board should make as close an approximation as it can, bearing heavily if it chooses upon the taxpayer whose inexactitude is of his own making. But to allow nothing at all appears to us inconsistent with saying that something was spent. True, we do not know how many trips Cohan made, nor how large his entertainments were; yet there- was obviously some basis for computation, if necessary by drawing upon the Board’s personal estimates of the minimum of such expenses. The amount may be trivial and unsatisfactory, but there was basis for some allowance, and it was wrong to refuse any, even though it were the traveling expenses of a single trip. It is not fatal that the result will inevitably be speculative; many important decisions must be such. We think that the Board was in error as to this and must reconsider the evidence.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“so incongruous as to call his motivation into question, ... [i]t can only be seen as one aimed at achieving maximum revenue at any cost, ... seeking to gain leverage against the taxpayer in the hope of garnering a split-the-difference settlement — or, failing that, then a compromise judgment — somewhere between the value returned by the taxpayer ... and the unsupportedly excessive value eventually proposed by the Commissioner.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the starting point for the asset-based approach in this case is the assumption that the assets are sold, the starting point for the earnings-based approach is that the Corporation's assets are retained—are not sold”
1 later decision 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.