Case ID: bta_4/html/1074-02.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "MoRRis:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

A. T. SACKETT, Petitioner, v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent.
    Docket No. 7577.
    Decided September 27, 1926.
    Salary earned prior to marriage may be reported by tbe wife in her separate return.
    
      A. T. Sackett pro se.
    
      A. Colder Mackay, Esq., for the respondent.
    This is a proceeding for the redetermination of a deficiency of $90.16, income tax for 1923. The deficiency arises from the inclusion in the income of petitioner of the income of his wife prior to their marriage.
    
      FINDINGS OF FACT.
    Petitioner resides in Los Angeles, Calif. On July 17, 1923, he and Dorothy Thurston Sackett were married. Prior to her marriage, Dorothy Thurston Sackett received as salaries, wages, and commissions, $728.50 which were reported by her and added by the Commissioner to the petitioner’s taxable income.
   OPINION.

MoRRis:

We are of the opinion that the Commissioner erred in including the separate property of the wife as income of the husband. Prior to July 17, 1923, the petitioner had no control whatsoever over the income of Dorothy Thurston Sackett. The community status existed only from that date and affects only income received thereafter. If we had any doubts as to this amount being her separate property, the doubts would be removed by section 162 of the Civil Code of California, which expressly states that earnings and property of the wife before her marriage constitute and remain her separate property thereafter and are not subject to the incidents of the community property law.

Judgment for the 'petitioner.