Harkness v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
469 F.2d 310 · 1972
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently June 1998
2 federal appellate · 1 district · 1 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.
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 1 (Airport and Airway Extension Act of 2008) · 26 U.S.C. § 102 · 26 U.S.C. § 162 · 26 U.S.C. § 643 · 26 U.S.C. § 662 · 26 U.S.C. § 663
Relies on Eisner v. Macomber · Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad · James v. United States · Nichols v. Coolidge · Heiner v. Donnan
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 7 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Section 662(a)(2)(B) was specifically intended ... “to avoid the necessity for tracing of income.” Such tracing was required by the 1939 Code, which provided that distributions by an estate or trust to its beneficiaries were taxed to the beneficiaries for the taxable year in which they received the distributions only if the distributions were made from the current income of the estate or trust. As shown, this lent itself to various lands of manipulations by executors in the labeling of estate moneys as “income” or “principal.” To eliminate such manipulations and tax consequences based upon such estate tax accounting designations of what was “principal” and “income” and from which source a distribution had been made, the “tracing” requirement was, for such distribution purposes, eliminated. Instead, “[t]he beneficiary’s proportionate share of the distributable net income * * * is determined by taking the same fractional part of [the] distributable net income * * * as the * * * amounts * * * distributed to him * * * bear to the total of [the] amounts * * * distributed to all beneficiaries.” In short, Congress wished to establish an easily useable formula, and to avoid both the necessity of “tracing” and an inquiry into the subjective intention of executors or trustees.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“to avoid both the necessity of 'tracing' and an inquiry into the subjective intention of executors”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“treated * * * as a gift, bequest, devise, or inheritance of income from property.”
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.