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9 B.T.A. 552

Stevenson v. Commissioner

United States Board of Tax Appeals

Decided December 9, 1927

United States Board of Tax Appeals · decided 1927-12-09

Where petitioner and three others, each owning an undivided one-fourth interest in real estate, contract to sell the property for more than cost, but the cash received is less than cost, and the contract has no readily realizable market value, petitioner held entitled to recover his share of the cost of the property before any taxable gain arises from his share of the selling price.

Relies on Meyer v. Commissioner · Evans v. Commissioner

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1927-12-09

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently October 1961

1 federal appellate ·

6019271930194019501960decided

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*555ORINION.

ApojNdell :

¶2If petitioner’s one-fourth interest in the deferred payments under the contract may be said to be the equivalent of cash, it would seem that the deficiency determined by the Commissioner must be approved, even though petitioner reports his income on a cash receipts and disbursements basis. What the Commissioner has sought to tax as cash income is a contract right to receive one-fourth of certain deferred payments payable over several years in the future. The fact that petitioner had but a one-fourth interest in the deferred payments and the known financial weakness of the purchaser and the *556speculative character of his undertaking would in and of themselves give one pause in saying that the deferred payments were the equivalent of cash. But we have here in addition the actual inability of petitioner to Realize on his contract right by sale, nor was he successful in pledging his interest in the contract as collateral for a loan.

¶3Income under the statute to one reporting on a cash basis is a much more real thing. We believe under the circumstances here present petitioner was entitled to recover his capital before being charged with the receipt of a profit and we so hold. Anton M. Meyer, 3 B. T. A. 1329; cf. Leroy G. Evans v. Commissioner, 5 B. T. A. 806.

¶4Reviewed by the Board.

¶5Judgment will be entered on IB days' notice, under Rule 50.

SterNhageN dissents.
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