joint return
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 311 U.S. 189 - Helvering v. Janney · 1940Most cited · 84 citing opinions
If a single joint return is filed it is treated as the return of a taxable unit and the net income disclosed by the return is subject to both normal and surtax as though the return were that of a single individual. In cases, therefore, in which the husband or wife has allowable deductions in excess of his or her gross income, such excess may, if joint return is filed, be deducted from the net income of the other for the purpose of computing both the normal and surtax.
How often courts cite the cases defining “joint return”
Court decisions citing the 2 opinions that defined “joint return” — 154 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 2 definitions, chronological · 1940–1940
- ORIGINAL
In making a joint return the husband and wife should report their aggregate gross income and could combine their deductions in reporting their aggregate net income upon which the tax was to be computed. That was the construction placed upon the original provision for joint returns, in the Revenue Act of 1918, by the Solicitor of Internal Revenue.