Germantown Trust Co. v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis
309 U.S. 304 · 1940
Citation profile
89 federal appellate · 15 district · 12 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 380 later decisions (10 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2021 · most notably Automobile Club of Mich. v. Commissioner (1957), Badaracco v. Commissioner (1984)
89 federal appellate · 15 district · 12 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 v. Germantown Trust Co. (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Morrissey v. Commissioner · Zellerbach Paper Co. v. Helvering · Russell v. Todd · Mabel Elevator 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 380 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““It cannot be said that the petitioner, whether treated as a corporation or not, made no return of the tax imposed by the statute. Its return may have been incomplete in that it failed to compute a tax, but this defect falls short of rendering no return whatsoever.” (p. 310, 60 S.Ct. p. 569)”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“contained all of the data from which a tax could be computed and assessed although it did not purport to state any amount due as tax.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“If the taxpayer omits from gross income an amount properly includible therein which is in excess of 25 percent of the amount of gross income stated in the return, the tax may be assessed, or a proceeding in court for the collection of such tax may be begun without assessment, at any time within 6 years after the return was filed. For purposes of this subpara-graph— (i) In the case of a trade or business, the term “gross income” means the total of the amounts received or accrued from the sale of goods or services (if such amounts are required to be shown on the return) prior to diminution by the cost of such sales or services; and (ii) In determining the amount omitted from gross income, there shall not be taken into account any amount which is omitted from gross income stated in the return if such amount is disclosed in the return, or in a statement attached to the return, in a manner adequate to apprise the Secretary or his delegate of the nature and amount of such item.”
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.