Task: songer_direct1

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Your task is to determine the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision, coded as "liberal" or "conservative". Consider liberal to be for government tax claim; for person claiming patent or copyright infringement; for the plaintiff alleging the injury; for economic underdog if one party is clearly an underdog in comparison to the other, neither party is clearly an economic underdog; in cases pitting an individual against a business, the individual is presumed to be the economic underdog unless there is a clear indication in the opinion to the contrary; for debtor or bankrupt; for government or private party raising claim of violation of antitrust laws, or party opposing merger; for the economic underdog in private conflict over securities; for individual claiming a benefit from government; for government in disputes over government contracts and government seizure of property; for government regulation in government regulation of business; for greater protection of the environment or greater consumer protection (even if anti-government); for the injured party in admiralty - personal injury; for economic underdog in admiralty and miscellaneous economic cases. Consider the directionality to be "mixed" if the directionality of the decision was intermediate to the extremes defined above or if the decision was mixed (e.g., the conviction of defendant in a criminal trial was affirmed on one count but reversed on a second count or if the conviction was afirmed but the sentence was reduced). Consider "not ascertained" if the directionality could not be determined or if the outcome could not be classified according to any conventional outcome standards.

DAVIS, Circuit Judge.
This petition involves the income tax liability of Frank D. Yuengling for the year 1928.
He executed an irrevocable trust agreement. It provided that the trustee would use the income of the res to pay premiums on policies of insurance upon the petitioner’s life and designated his wife and children as the beneficiaries ox the trust.
The question here is whether or not that portion of the income of the res which was applied to the payment of premiums on the insurance policies on the petitioner’s life for his family’s benefit is taxable to him. The facts here are substantially the same as those considered by the Supreme Court when it decided this question in Burnet v. Wells, 289 U. S. 670, 53 S. Ct. 761, 77 L. Ed. 1439. Accordingly, upon the authority of that case, we hold that sueh income is taxable to the petitioner.
The second question is determined also by the broad principle that income may include not only ownership but rights or privileges that are merely indicia of ownership. Certain corporations, in which the petitioner owned all 'the capital stock, paid premiums on policies of insurance on the life of the petitioner. The proceeds of the policies were to be paid to the petitioner’s wife and children. The corporations'did not benefit from the policies.
These facts are sufficient to sustain the determination of the Board of Tax Appeals that the petitioner received the benefit of the payments, and they were income to him.
It is the settled administrative practice to regard premiums paid by a corporation on an individual insurance policy on the life of an officer as income to the officer if he is permitted to designate the beneficiary and if the corporation is not directly or indirectly benefited thereby. George M. Adams, 18 B. T. A. 381; N. Boring Danforth, 18 B. T. A. 1221 The payment of sueh premiums by the corporation must be presumed as compensation for services, rather than gifts as the petitioner contends, since a corporation cannot lawfully give away its assets. Noel v. Parrott, 15 F.(2d) 669, 671 (C. C. A. 4), certiorari denied, 273 U. S. 754, 47 S. Ct. 457, 71 L. Ed. 875.
The order of redetermination of the Board of Tax Appeals is affirmed.

Question: What is the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision?
A. conservative
B. liberal
C. mixed
D. not ascertained
Answer:

Answer: B