Taft v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis
304 U.S. 351 · 1938
Citation profile
117 federal appellate · 3 district · 9 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 244 later decisions (20 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2011 · most notably United States v. American Trucking Associations (1940), National Labor Relations Board v. Seven-Up Bottling Co. of Miami, Inc. (1953)
117 federal appellate · 3 district · 9 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedTaft v. Commissioner (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Porter v. Commissioner · Safe Deposit & Trust Co. v. Commissioner · Ferguson v. Dickson · Carney v. Benz
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 244 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“* * * The Revenue Act of 1916 permitted the deduction of the amount of claims against the estate “allowed by the laws of the jurisdiction * * * under which the estate is being administered.” The Acts of 1918 and 1921 contain like provisions. Under these Acts the claims in question would have been deductible as enforceable by state law irrespective of the nature of the consideration. The Act of 1924 altered existing law and authorized the deduction of claims against an estate only to the extent that they were “incurred or contracted bona fide and for a fair consideration in money or money’s worth.” Congress had reason to think that the phrase “fair consideration” would be held to comprehend an instance of a promise which was honest, reasonable, and free from suspicion whether or not the consideration for it was, strictly speaking, adequate. The words “adequate and full consideration” were substituted by § 303(a)(1) of the Act of 1926. There must have been some reason for these successive changes. It seems- evident that the purpose was to narrow the class of deductible claims * * *. [Footnotes omitted.]”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““(a) Genera] rule — for purposes of the tax imposed by Section 2001, the value of the taxable estate shall be determined by deducting from the value of the gross estate such amounts (3) for claims against the estate . . . and (c)(1)(A) consideration for claim — the deduction allowed by this section in the case of claims against the estate, unpaid mortgages, or any indebtedness shall, when founded on a promise or agreement, be limited to the extent that they were contracted bona fide and for adequate and full consideration in money or money’s worth . . . ””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Subsection (3) applies only to testamentary dispositions. * * * The only transfers required to be included in the gross estate are those made in contemplation of death or to take effect in possession or enjoyment at or after death. In other words, only such transfers as are testamentary in character are to be included in the gross estate, and it follows that only those of that character are deductible under subsection (3).” (emphasis supplied)”
2 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.