Helvering v. Wilshire Oil Co.’s Empirical Analysis
308 U.S. 90 · 1939
Citation profile
144 federal appellate · 16 district · 22 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 369 later decisions (52 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2016 · most notably Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Glenshaw Glass Company (1955), Higgins v. Smith (1940)
144 federal appellate · 16 district · 22 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
reviewedCommissioner of Internal Revenue v. Wilshire Oil Co. (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Morrissey v. Commissioner · Helvering v. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. · United States v. Dakota-Montana Oil Co. · Ambassador Petroleum Co. v. Commissioner
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 369 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It does not mean that a regulation interpreting a provision of one act becomes frozen into another act merely by reenactment of that provision, so that that administrative interpretation cannot be changed prospectively through exercise of appropriate rule-making powers.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“These regulations applied prospectively only and did not purport to reach back to earlier years when the taxpayer relied on a different rule or practice. Tax statutes and tax regulations never have been static. Experience, changing needs, changing philosophies inevitably produce constant change in each. One making an election in the 1925 return took the risk that the method of treatment of depletion might be changed by the Congress, or, where power existed, by the Commissioner. Any other conclusion would make the application of changes pursuant to regulations, though prospective, dependent on fortuitous circumstances under which each taxpayer made such an election. Rigidity, as well as confusion, in administration of tax laws would be the result. [Helvering v. Wilshire Oil Co., 308 U.S. at 97 .]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“Gross Income from the property ................ $1,213,456.09 , Less: Operating and Development Expense..... 849,544.37 Net Income from the property ............ $ 363,911.72 50 per cent of the net income from the property equals........... $ 181,955.86 27% per cent of the gross income from the property equals .............. 333,700.42”
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.