Helvering v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
90 F.2d 590 · 1937
Citation profile
34 federal appellate · 2 district · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 65 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2024 · most notably United States v. a & P Trucking Co. (1958), Williams v. McGowan (1945)
34 federal appellate · 2 district · 5 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. § 101
Relies on Bull v. United States · Helvering v. Walbridge · Hill v. Commissioner · Johnston v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue · Harris 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 65 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The transaction was not a sale because be got nothing which was not his, and gave up nothing which was. Except for the “purchase” and release, all his collections would have been income; the remaining partners would merely have turned over to him his existing interest in earnings already made. As he kept his books on a cash basis, it is true that he would have been taxed only as he received the accounts in driblets, but he would have been taxed upon them as income. The “purchase” of that future income did not turn it into capital, any more than the discount of a note received in consideration of personal services. The commuted payment merely replaced the future income with cash. Indeed, this very situation was suggested in Bull v. United States, supra, 295 U. S. 247 , at pages 256, 257, 55 S. Ct. 695, 698 , 79 L. Ed. 1421 , and dealt with as we say. Nobody would suggest that the sale of a declared dividend payable in the future turns the cash received into capital.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““With this history before us, it would Be a palpable perversion to understand the act as creating a new juristic person, which owned the firm property and was obligor of the firm debts, against which the partners had only a chose in action, and to which they were liable as guarantors. “Moreover the Revenue Act gives no color to such a theory, but was framed on precisely the opposite plan. From the outset the tax had been imposed on the partners, and their taxable income has included their distributive shares, whether distributed or not.””
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.