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69 F.2d 971

Docket No. 5246.

Yuengling v. Commissioner

Third Circuit Court of Appeals

Decided March 20, 1934.

Third Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1934-03-20

2 counsel of record

Relies on Burnet v. Wells · Noel v. Parrott · Adams v. Commissioner

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1934-03-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently March 1958

9 federal appellate ·

40193419401950decided

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.

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¶1*972John J. Sullivan, of Philadelphia, Pa., for petitioner.

¶2Pat Malloy, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Walter L. Barlow and John H. McEvers, Sp. Assts. to Atty. Gen., for respondent.

¶3Before WOOLLEY, DAYIS, and THOMPSON, Circuit Judges.

¶4DAVIS, Circuit Judge.

¶5This petition involves the income tax liability of Frank D. Yuengling for the year 1928.

¶6He executed an irrevocable trust agreement. It provided that the trustee would use the income of the res to pay premiums on policies of insurance upon the petitioner’s life and designated his wife and children as the beneficiaries ox the trust.

¶7The question here is whether or not that portion of the income of the res which was applied to the payment of premiums on the insurance policies on the petitioner’s life for his family’s benefit is taxable to him. The facts here are substantially the same as those considered by the Supreme Court when it decided this question in Burnet v. Wells, 289 U. S. 670, 53 S. Ct. 761, 77 L. Ed. 1439. Accordingly, upon the authority of that case, we hold that sueh income is taxable to the petitioner.

¶8 The second question is determined also by the broad principle that income may include not only ownership but rights or privileges that are merely indicia of ownership. Certain corporations, in which the petitioner owned all 'the capital stock, paid premiums on policies of insurance on the life of the petitioner. The proceeds of the policies were to be paid to the petitioner’s wife and children. The corporations'did not benefit from the policies.

¶9These facts are sufficient to sustain the determination of the Board of Tax Appeals that the petitioner received the benefit of the payments, and they were income to him.

¶10It is the settled administrative practice to regard premiums paid by a corporation on an individual insurance policy on the life of an officer as income to the officer if he is permitted to designate the beneficiary and if the corporation is not directly or indirectly benefited thereby. George M. Adams, 18 B. T. A. 381; N. Boring Danforth, 18 B. T. A. 1221 The payment of sueh premiums by the corporation must be presumed as compensation for services, rather than gifts as the petitioner contends, since a corporation cannot lawfully give away its assets. Noel v. Parrott, 15 F.(2d) 669, 671 (C. C. A. 4), certiorari denied, 273 U. S. 754, 47 S. Ct. 457, 71 L. Ed. 875.

¶11The order of redetermination of the Board of Tax Appeals is affirmed.

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