Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/301/655.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 13:04:09+00:00

Document:
Messrs. Homer S. Cummings, Atty. Gen., and [301 U.S. 655, 656] J. Louis Monarch, of Washington, D.C., for petitioner.
After description of the lands and leaseholds the assignment provides that the oil payment shall be made to the assignors, Hammonds and Branson, each to receive one-half thereof, 'out of the oil produced and saved from' the leased premises, 'which payments shall be made by the pipe line company or other purchaser of said oil, and shall be one-fourth (1/4) of all the oil produced and saved from the above described land, until the full sum ... is fully paid.' It is understood and agreed that the $395, 000 'is payable out of oil only, if, as and when produced from said lands above described, and said oil payment does not constitute and shall not be a personal obligation of the assignee, its successors or assigns. ... The oil payment [301 U.S. 655, 658] ... shall bear none of the expenses of the development of said leases or any other burden.' The instrument does not purport to reserve a lien.
Perkins drilled wells on the leased lands and in 1933 produced oil; the assignors received substantial amounts, to apply on the payment to be made them; the oil was run from the wells into tanks on the leased premises from which it was taken by pipeline companies purchasing the oil. Each purchaser required and was furnished a division order executed by all the interested parties. By such orders assignors authorized purchasers to receive from the wells one-fourth of the oil and declared that the oil run should become the property of the purchasers as soon as received by them. In accordance with the orders, purchasers made payments directly and proportionately to the owner of the royalty reserved in the lease, to assignors, and to assignee. The last could not collect for any portion of the oil applicable to the oil payment to be made assignors.
In their tax return for 1933 respondents, Perkins and wife, did not include in income any part of the proceeds that went to assignors. But the Commissioner charged the amounts received by the assignors to the respondents and allowed the latter depletion in respect of the same. At the trial it was proved that the long-established practice of the bureau was not to require the operator of an oil and gas lease to include as a part of his income the royalties payable in kind to the lessors. But where they were payable in cash the operator included the proceeds of all the oil and took as an offsetting deduction the amount of royalties paid. It was admitted that, if the assignors' payments are excluded, the depletion allowed respondents should be correspondingly reduced.
The construction that the parties put upon the assignment makes for the same conclusion. There is no suggestion that, having taken title, the assignee transferred any of the oil back to assignors. The division orders designated, and so served to indicate ownership of, the quantities belonging to each of the interested parties. And, in the circumstances, the orders given and proceeds received by assignors necessarily covered and were derived from oil not transferred by the assignment.
The taxpayer, Palmer, was a member of a partnership that acquired oil and gas leases, discovered oil, executed a writing conferring on a company the right to take over a part of the leased property in consideration of a present payment of a cash bonus, and future payments to be made 'out of one-half of the first oil produced and saved' to the extent of $1,000,000, and an additional 'excess royalty' of one-eighth of all the oil produced and saved. The writing declared that the partnership 'does sell, assign, set over, transfer and deliver ... unto the' oil company the described leased premises.
In his tax return, Palmer reported his share of the income derived by the partnership from the bonus payment and oil received under its contract with the oil company and, relying on section 214(a)(10), made a deduction for depletion based on value of oil in place on the date of discovery. The Commissioner refused to allow the deduction on the theory that the transaction was a sale of the leases by the partnership, and that the only allowable deduction was one based upon the cost of the property. As cost was less than the discovery value, the Commissioner's allowance of depletion was less than that claimed by Palmer and the tax was correspondingly greater. He paid it, and sued the collector to recover the amount by which the Commissioner's ruling operated to increase his burden.
Thus in that case we held assignors' mere stipulation for royalty out of oil operated to save to them an economic interest in the oil sufficient to entitle them to deduct from their income derived from the oil an allowance for depletion. If Palmer had retained no interest in the oil, he would have been entitled to no deduction on account of depletion. Ownership was essential. The assignee was not entitled to income from Palmer's share of the oil nor to deduct from the income it received from its own interest any part of the depletion allowance that was attributable to Palmer's interest.
As in the earlier of these cases the assignor was entitled to deduct depletion from income he received from his interest in the oil, so in the later one the assignee was not entitled to deduct from income received from its share an [301 U.S. 655, 663] allowance for depletion attributable to the assignor's interest. The owner of an interest in the deposit is entitled to deduct for depletion of the part producing his income but may not deduct for depletion of a share belonging to another.
As Hammonds and Branson, the assignors in this case, would be entitled to an allowance for depletion in respect of the oil sold out of their share,4 the income from that interest is not chargeable to respondents, Perkins and wife. It follows that the Commissioner erred in including in their income the payments made by purchasers to assignors for their share of the oil.
Mr. Justice STONE and Mr. Justice CARDOZO think the oil and gas produced by the assignee of the lease, and their proceeds, were his income and not any the less so because he agreed to apply a part to payment of the purchase price of the lease, and gave an equitable lien to secure the payment. Whether the purchase price, when paid, represented a capital gain taxable to the assignors, and whether in that case their interest would be subject to a depletion allowance under our decision in Palmer v. Bender, 287 U.S. 551 , 53 S.Ct. 225, are questions irrelevant to the present issue. The judgment should be reversed.
[ Footnote 1 ] Contemporaneously with the assignment there was paid $105,000 in cash and $50,000 in notes.
[ Footnote 2 ] Lynch v. Alworth-Stephens Co., 267 U.S. 364, 370 , 45 S.Ct. 274, 275; Corliss v. Bowers, 281 U.S. 376, 378 , 50 S.Ct. 336; Tyler v. United States, 281 U.S. 497, 503 , 50 S.Ct. 356, 359, 69 A.L.R. 758; Burnet v. Harmel, 287 U.S. 103, 110 , 53 S.Ct. 74, 77; Palmer v. Bender, 287 U.S. 551, 556 , 53 S.Ct. 225, 226; Burnet v. Guggenheim, 288 U.S. 280, 284 , 53 S.Ct. 369, 370; Helvering v. Falk, 291 U.S. 183, 188 , 54 S.Ct. 353, 354.
[ Footnote 3 ] Sheffield v. Hogg, 124 Tex. 290, 77 S.W.(2d) 1021, 80 S.W.(2d) 741. See Waggoner Estate v. Sigler Oil Co., 118 Tex. 509, 517, 19 S.W.(2d) 27; Hager v. Stakes, 116 Tex. 453, 294 S.W. 835; Stephens County v. Mid-Kansas Oil & Gas Co., 113 Tex. 160, 254 S.W. 290, 29 A.L.R. 566; Texas Co. v. Daugherty, 107 Tex. 226, 227, 176 S.W. 717, L.R.A.1917F, 989.
[ Footnote 4 ] Revenue Act of 1932, 23(l), 114(b)(3), 47 Stat. 181, 202 (26 U.S. C.A. 23(m), and note, 114(b)(3) and note). Palmer v. Bender, 287 U.S. 551 . 53 S.Ct. 225; Helvering v. Twin Bell Syndicate, 293 U.S. 312 , 55 S.Ct. 174.

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