Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/257/156/
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 11:05:36+00:00

Document:
1. Substance, and not form, should control in the application of the Sixteenth Amendment and the income tax laws enacted under it. P. 257 U. S. 168.
2. The Income Tax Law of October 3, 1913, in declaring that the tax shall be laid on gains, profits, and income derived from dividends, means not that everything in the form of a dividend must be treated as income, but that income derived in the way of dividends shall be taxed. P. 257 U. S. 168.
3. Income defined (p. 257 U. S. 169) as in Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U. S. 189.
holdings in each, but less than one-half of the new company's authorized stock had been issued. Thereafter, the old corporation continued as a going concern, but, except for the redemption of its bonds and retirement of its preferred stock, and the holding of the debenture stock equal to its common, and collection and disposition of the dividends thereon, did no business.
(a) The shares of the new company's common stock which passed to the old company and through it to its stockholders as a dividend, representing its surplus, were income of the shareholders, taxable under the Act of October 3, 1913. P. 257 U. S. 169.
(b) And this although the market value of the stockholder's old shares before the dividend was the same as that of his old and new shares after it. P. 257 U. S. 170.
(c) The new company must be regarded not as substantially identical with the old, but as a separate entity, and its stockholders a having property rights and interests materially different from those incident to ownership of stock in the old company. P. 257 U. S. 172.
(d) The new common stock in the treasury of the old company being treasury assets representing accumulated profits and capable of distribution, its distribution transferred to the several stockholders new individual property which they were severally entitled to enjoy or to sell -- their individual income. P. 257 U. S. 174.
Appeal from a judgment sustaining a claim for a refund of moneys paid under protest in discharge of an income tax assessment.
The court below sustained the claim of C. W. Phellis for a refund of certain moneys paid by him under protest in discharge of an additional tax assessed against him for the year 1915 based upon alleged income equivalent to the market value of 500 shares of stock of a Delaware corporation called the E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., received by him as a dividend upon his 250 shares of stock of the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Powder Company, a New Jersey corporation. The United States appeals.
per share, and its fair market value, after the execution of the contracts between the two corporations, was, on October 1, 1915, $100 per share. The fair market value of the stock of the Delaware corporation distributed as aforesaid was, on October 1, 1915, $347.50 per share. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue held that the 500 shares of Delaware company stock acquired by claimant in the distribution was income of the value of $347.50 per share, and assessed the additional tax accordingly.
The Court of Claims, observing that, from the facts as found, claimant's 250 shares of stock in the New Jersey corporation were worth on the market, prior to the transfer and dividend, precisely the same that the same shares plus the Delaware company's shares received by him were worth thereafter, and that he did not gain any increase in the value of his aggregate holdings by the operation, held that the whole transaction was to be regarded as merely a financial reorganization of the business of the company, producing to him no profit, and hence no income, and that the distribution was in effect a stock dividend nontaxable as income under the authority of Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U. S. 189, and not within the rule of Peabody v. Eisner, 247 U. S. 347.
We recognize the importance of regarding matters of substance and disregarding forms in applying the provisions of the Sixteenth Amendment and income tax laws enacted thereunder. In a number of cases besides those just cited, we have under varying conditions followed the rule. Lynch v. Turrish, 247 U. S. 221; Southern Pacific Co. v. Lowe, 247 U. S. 330; Gulf Oil Corp. v. Lewellyn, 248 U. S. 71.
on for gain or profit, or gains or profits and income derived from any source whatever."
Disregarding the slight looseness of construction, we interpret "gains profits, and income derived from . . . dividends," etc., as meaning not that everything in the form of a dividend must be treated as income, but that income derived in the way of dividends shall be taxed. Hence, the inquiry must be whether the shares of stock in the new company received by claimant as a dividend by reason of his ownership of stock in the old company constituted (to apply the tests laid down in Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U. S. 189, 252 U. S. 207), a gain derived from capital, not a gain accruing to capital, nor a growth or increment of value in the investment, but a gain, a profit, something of exchangeable value proceeding from the property, severed from the capital however invested, and coming in -- that is, received or drawn by the claimant for his separate use, benefit, and disposal.
Claimant's capital investment was represented by his New Jersey shares. Whatever increment of value had accrued to them prior to September 30, 1915, by reason of the surplus profits that theretofore had been accumulated by the company was still a part of claimant's capital, from which as yet he had derived no actual and therefore no taxable income so far as the surplus remained undistributed. As yet, he had no right to withdraw it or any part of it, could not have such right until action by the company or its proper representatives, and his interest still was but the general property interest of a stockholder in the entire assets, business, and affairs of the company -- a capital interest, as we declared in Eisner v. Macomber, supra, p. 252 U. S. 208.
changed the former situation materially. The common stock of the new company, after its transfer to the old company and prior to its distribution, constituted assets of the old company which it now held to represent its surplus of accumulated profits -- still, however, a common fund in which the individual stockholders of the old company had no separate interest. But when this common stock was distributed among the common stockholders of the old company as a dividend, then at once -- unless the two companies must be regarded as substantially identical -- the individual stockholders of the old company, including claimant, received assets of exchangeable and actual value severed from their capital interest in the old company, proceeding from it as the result of a division of former corporate profits, and drawn by them severally for their individual and separate use and benefit. Such a gain resulting from their ownership of stock in the old company and proceeding from it constituted individual income in the proper sense.
business activities and constituted its surplus, a surplus in which, until dividend made, the individual stockholder had no property interest except as it increased the valuation of his capital. It is the appropriate function of a dividend to convert a part of a surplus thus accumulated from property of the company into property of the individual stockholders, the stockholder's share being thereby released to and drawn by him as profits or income derived from the company. That the distribution reduces the intrinsic capital value of the shares by an equal amount is a normal and necessary effect of all dividend distributions, whether large or small and whether paid in money or in other divisible assets, but such reduction constitutes the dividend nonetheless income derived by the stockholder if it represents gains previously acquired by the corporation. Hence, a comparison of aggregate values immediately before with those immediately after the dividend is not a proper test for determining whether individual income, taxable against the stockholder, has been received by means of the dividend.
goes -- and necessarily took subject to the burden of the income tax proper to be assessed against him by reason of the dividend if and when made. He simply stepped into the shoes, in this as in other respects, of the stockholder whose shares he acquired, and presumably the prospect of a dividend influenced the price paid, and was discounted by the prospect of an income tax to be paid thereon. In short, the question whether a dividend made out of company profits constitutes income of the stockholder is not affected by antecedent transfers of the stock from hand to hand.
There is more force in the suggestion that, looking through and through the entire transaction out of which the distribution came, it was but a financial reorganization of the business as it stood before, without diminution of the aggregate assets or change in the general corporate objects and purposes, without change of personnel either in officers or stockholders, or change in the proportionate interest of any individual stockholder. The argument, in effect, is that there was no loss of essential identity on the part of the company, only a change of the legal habiliments in which the aggregate corporate interests were clothed; no substantial realization by individual stockholders out of the previous accumulation of corporate profits, merely a distribution of additional certificates indicating an increase in the value of their capital holdings. This brings into view the general effect of the combined action of the entire body of stockholders as a mass.
to the latter, all of which are in the findings. The plan as thus proposed and adopted, and as carried out, involved the formation of a new corporation to take over the business and the business assets of the old; it was to be and was formed under the laws of a different state, which necessarily imports a different measure of responsibility to the public, and presumably different rights between stockholders and company and between stockholders inter sese than before. The articles of association of neither company is made to appear, but in favor of the asserted identity between the companies, we will assume (contrary to the probabilities) that there was no significant difference here. But the new company was to have authorized capital stock aggregating $240,000,000 -- nearly four times the aggregate stock issues and funded debt of the old company -- of which less than one-half ($118,515,900) was to be issued presently to the old company or its stockholders, leaving the future disposition of a majority of the authorized new issues still to be determined. There was no present change of officers or stockholders, but manifestly a continuation of identity in this respect depended upon continued unanimous consent or concurrent action of a multitude of individual stockholders actuated by motives and influences necessarily to some extent divergent. In the light of all this, we cannot regard the new company as virtually identical with the old, but must treat it as a substantial corporate body with its own separate identity, and its stockholders as having property rights and interests materially different from those incident to ownership of stock in the old company.
new necessarily have that effect. But the identity of stockholders was but a temporary condition, subject to change at any moment at the option of any individual. As to the assets, the very fact of their transfer from one company to the other evidenced the actual separateness of the two companies.
But, further, it would be erroneous, we think, to test the question whether an individual stockholder derived income in the true and substantial sense through receiving a part in the distribution of the new shares, by regarding alone the general effect of the reorganization upon the aggregate body of stockholders. The liability of a stockholder to pay an individual income tax must be tested by the effect of the transaction upon the individual. It was a part of the purpose and a necessary result of the plan of reorganization, as carried out, that common stock of the new company to the extent of $58,854,200 should be turned over to the old company, treated by it as assets to be distributed as against its liability to stockholders for accrued surplus, and thereupon distributed to them "as a dividend." The assent of the stockholders was based upon this as a part of the plan.
severally were entitled to retain and enjoy, or to sell and transfer, with precisely the same substantial benefit to each as if the old company had acquired the stock by purchase from strangers. According to the findings, the stock thus distributed was marketable. There was neither express nor implied condition, arising out of the plan of reorganization or otherwise, to prevent any stockholder from selling it, and he could sell his entire portion or any of it without parting with his capital interest in the parent company or affecting his proportionate relation to the interests of other stockholders. Whether he sold the new stock for money or retained it in preference, in either case, when he received it, he received as his separate property a part of the accumulated profits of the old company in which previously he had only a potential and contingent interest.
It thus appears that, in substance and fact, as well as in appearance, the dividend received by claimant was a gain, a profit derived from his capital interest in the old company, not in liquidation of the capital, but in distribution of accumulated profits of the company; something of exchangeable value produced by and proceeding from his investment therein, severed from it and drawn by him for his separate use. Hence, it constituted individual income within the meaning of the Income Tax Law, as clearly as was the the case in Peabody v. Eisner, 247 U. S. 347.
Judgment of the Court of Claims reversed, and the cause remanded, with directions to dismiss the suit.
"It seems incredible that Congress intended to tax as income a business transaction which admittedly produced no gain, no profit, and hence no income. If any income had accrued to the plaintiff by reason of the sale and exchange made, it would doubtless be taxable."
There were perfectly good reasons for the reorganization, and the good faith of the parties is not questioned. I assume that the statute was not intended to put an embargo upon legitimate reorganizations when deemed essential for carrying on important enterprises. Eisner v. Macomber was rightly decided, and the principle which I think it announced seems in conflict with the decision just announced.
MR. JUSTICE VAN DEVANTER concurs in this dissent.

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