Borax v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis
1963
Citation profile
3 federal appellate ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently September 1987
3 federal appellate ·
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.
Relationships
Relies on Commissioner v. Tower · Rodriguez v. New York · Lyeth v. Hoey · Pollard v. United States · Daine 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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We recognize and are fully in accord with the principle that the Federal law will control when there is a question of the construction of a Federal statute, Lyeth v. Hoey, 305 U.S. 188 (1938), and that Federal tax statutes are not to be frustrated by State laws, Commissioner v. Tower, 327 U.S. 280 (1946). But here we do not look to State law to construe the Federal statute. The statute, as interpreted by the Federal courts, requires that the written instrument be incident to the decree of divorce or, in this case, the status of divorce. There being no body of Federal law from which we can determine whether the status of divorce existed, we must look elsewhere. This Court has often held that where the language of a Federal tax statute depends on the marriage status we will look to State law for that purpose. Marriage, its existence and dissolution, is particularly within the province of the States. Marriner S. Eccles, 19 T.C. 1049 (1953), affirmed per curiam 208 F. 2d 796 (C.A. 4, 1953); Albert Gersten, 28 T.C. 756 (1957), affirmed on this issue 267 F. 2d 195 (C.A. 9, 1959); John J. Untermann, 38 T.C. 93 (1962). The reason for looking to State law here is to aid in determining the status of divorce as required by the Federal statute; and we cannot see that doing so frustrates any tax policy of the Congress in this situation.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“5. That the foregoing payments shall be in full satisfaction and discharge of any and all alimony, whether permanent or temporary, which the Second Party may claim, or be awarded, in any action that may hereafter be brought by either party against the other.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“this is not a matter of construction of the Federal statute but a question of determining the marital status of the parties which we have repeatedly held is a matter peculiarly within the province of the States wherein the parties reside.”
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.