Carrington v. Commissioner’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 federal appellate · 2 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 33 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “[a] gift of appreciated property does not result in income to the donor so long as he gives the property away absolutely and parts with title thereto before the property gives to income by way of a sale”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Palmer v. Commissioner · Buehner v. Commissioner

2. “The Commissioner of Internal Revenue and the courts have been at odds in gift-and-repurchase situations such as confronts us here. While the Commissioner has emphasized the “prearrangement,” “understanding” of the parties and “common identity” of donor and repurchaser aspects relative to gifts of stock, the courts have tended to focus on the narrow circumstances surrounding the actual delivery of the stock. The thrust of decisions involving gift-and-repurchase of stock is that a completed gift takes place when there is donative intent and physical delivery of the stock to the donee — which, without more, implies relinquishment of dominion and control by the donor over such stock. * * * These decisions disclose that courts will attach conclusive substance to the form chosen by the parties unless one can demonstrate rather clearly that the form chosen is not an accurate reflection of its substance. Further, they reveal that courts are generally not concerned with what a donee does with the gift thereafter, even if the gift is repurchased shortly after it is given by the donor’s controlled corporation, providing there is no agreement between the donor and donee such as to render the gift a sham, and the donor risks the possibility, however small, that the donee may sell the gift elsewhere. Pre-arrangements, understandings or tentative planning between the involved parties which do not impose legal obligations on them to either sell or purchase the gift after it is given, will no”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Buehner v. Commissioner

3. “The purpose of the various integrated transactions involving the real property described in paragraph 9, above, was to place the property in the hands of St. Matthews Episcopal Church at the maximum tax benefit to petitioners, Walter R. Carrington and Ada Raye Carrington.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Haley v. United States