Braunstein v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis
1963
Citation profile
49 federal appellate · 3 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 121 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2018 · most notably Brennan v. Taft Broadcasting Co. (1974), Lykes Bros. Steamship Co. v. United States (1975)
49 federal appellate · 3 district · 4 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
reviewedBraunstein v. Commissioner (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 117
Relies on Braunstein Et Al. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue · Braunstein v. Commissioner · United States v. Harold W. Ivey and Mrs. Virginia Ivey, Harold W. Ivey and Mrs. Virginia Ivey v. United States · Braunstein 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 121 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“* * * There is no indication whatever of any congressional desire to have the Commissioner or the courts make a determination in each case as to whether the use of the corporation was for tax avoidance. Indeed, the drawing of certain arbitrary lines not here involved — such as making the section inapplicable to any shareholder owning 10% or less of the stock or to any gain realized more than three years after the completion of construction — tends to refute any such indication. It is our understanding, in other words, that Congress intended to define what it believed to be a tax avoidance device rather than to leave the presence or absence of tax avoidance elements for decision on a case-to-case basis. [ 374 U.S. at 71 , 83 S.Ct. at 1666 .]”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““There is nothing in the language or structure of the section to demand or even justify reading into these provisions the additional requirement that the taxpayer must in fact have been using the corporate form as a device to convert ordinary income into capital gain. If a corporation owns but one asset, and the shareholders sell their stock at a profit resulting from an increase in the value of the asset, they have ‘gain attributable to’ that asset in the natural meaning of the phrase regardless of their desire, or lack of desire, to avoid the bite of federal income taxes.’-’”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“merely confin[ing] consideration to that gain caused or generated by the property in question”
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.