Pearce v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

72 federal appellate · 16 state decisions

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 151 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “But the fact that a line has to be drawn somewhere does not justify its being drawn anywhere.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
   e.g. Rummel v. Estelle · People v. Sanchez

2. ““By statute in Texas alimony may be awarded during the pendency of a suit for a divorce ‘until a final decree shall be made in the case’. * * * ‘In this state the legal duty of the husband to support his wife ceases upon the severance of the marital bonds, nor has a court the power to decree that a husband or his property may be subjected to such support after divorce. Permanent alimony is not provided for by Texas statutes.’ * * * “For even though petitioner established that the divorce court retained that broad power, not specifically reserved, and even though we assume that the power to make a division of property is the equivalent of a power to provide permanent alimony, she has not maintained her burden of rebutting the presumptively correct determination of the Commissioner that the income from this annuity contract was taxable to her. In order to maintain that burden she would have to show that it was at least doubtful and uncertain whether the Texas court, as an incident of its power to require the husband to support his wife, retained control over this annuity contract or the income from it. * * *«”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Daggett v. Commissioner · 52 Tenn. App. 484 - Burton v. Burton

3. “* * * Those cases dealt with situations where the taxpayer had made assignments of income from property. He was held taxable on the income assigned by reason of the principle `that the power to dispose of income is the equivalent of ownership of it and that the exercise of the power to procure its payment to another, whether to pay a debt or to make a gift, is within the reach' of the federal income tax law. Harrison v. Schaffner, supra, 312 U.S. at page 580 , 61 S.Ct. at page 760 , 85 L.Ed. 1055 . But in those cases the donor or grantor had `parted with no substantial interest in property other than the specified payments of income.' Id. 312 U.S. at page 583, 61 S. Ct. at page 762, 85 L.Ed. 1055 . Here he has parted with the corpus. And `the tax is upon income as to which, in the general application of the revenue acts, the tax liability attaches to ownership.' Blair v. Commissioner, 300 U.S. 5, 12 , 57 S.Ct. 330, 333 , 81 L.Ed. 465 .”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Austin v. Commissioner · Bell's Estate v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue