Case ID: us-ct-cl_80/html/0256-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THEODORE HAEBLER, AS SOLE EXECUTOR OF THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF LOUISE EBLING, DECEASED, v. THE UNITED STATES
    [No. 42613.
    Decided November 5, 1934]
    
      
      Mr. Eugene Cohn for the plaintiff.
    
      Mr. John A. Rees, with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney General Franh J. Wideman, for the defendant.
   MEMORANDUM BT THE COURT

The sole question involved in this case is whether under the Revenue Act of 1926 a claim for an estate-tax refund otherwise established is limited in amount to the portion of the tax paid within three years of the presentation of the claim. The defense made to plaintiff’s case is that under the law and the regulations of the Department it is so limited.

We are not disposed to enter into any further discussion of this question. In Hills v. United States, 73 C. Cls. 128, 55 Fed. (2d) 1001 (submitted on demurrer), in an exhaustive opinion upon hearing and rehearing, this court held that defendant’s contention could not be sustained, and in Hills v. United States [ante, p. 41] being the same case submitted upon the facts, we have reaffirmed the opinion in the first-named case. In the meantime no less than three Federal courts have rendered decisions to the same effect and have emphasized in their opinions their view that there was no doubt about the correctness of the original decision of this court. A new point has been raised, based upon the fact that the practice of the Bureau of Internal Bevenue has been to hold to the contrary of the opinion that we have expressed, but the question arising thereon has been considered and decided adversely to the defendant in Union Trust Co. v. United States, 70 Fed. (2d) 629; United States v. Clarke, 69 Fed. (2d) 748; Hills v. United States, supra; and Magoon v. United States, 1933 C. C. H. 8755. Moreover, as is pointed out in several of these decisions, Congress has since amended the statute in a manner which has, in the language of the case of Magoon v. United States, supra, set the seal of congressional approval on the decision in the Hills ease, and furnishes an almost unanswerable argument that the general congressional intent in the earlier enactments was exactly as declared by the Court of Claims.”

Under the findings and law as stated above, plaintiff is entitled to judgment for $674.57, with interest from March 10, 1928, at six percent, as provided by law.