Task: songer_appel1_7_5

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
When coding the detailed nature of participants, use your personal knowledge about the participants, if you are completely confident of the accuracy of your knowledge, even if the specific information is not in the opinion. For example, if "IBM" is listed as the appellant it could be classified as "clearly national or international in scope" even if the opinion did not indicate the scope of the business. 

Your task concerns the first listed appellant. The nature of this litigant falls into the category "natural person (excludes persons named in their official capacity or who appear because of a role in a private organization)". Your task is to determine which of these categories best describes the income of the litigant. Consider the following categories: "not ascertained", "poor + wards of state" (e.g., patients at state mental hospital; not prisoner unless specific indication that poor), "presumed poor" (e.g., migrant farm worker), "presumed wealthy" (e.g., high status job - like medical doctors, executives of corporations that are national in scope, professional athletes in the NBA or NFL; upper 1/5 of income bracket), "clear indication of wealth in opinion", "other - above poverty line but not clearly wealthy" (e.g., public school teachers, federal government employees)." Note that "poor" means below the federal poverty line; e.g., welfare or food stamp recipients. There must be some specific indication in the opinion that you can point to before anyone is classified anything other than "not ascertained". Prisoners filing "pro se" were classified as poor, but litigants in civil cases who proceed pro se were not presumed to be poor. Wealth obtained from the crime at issue in a criminal case was not counted when determining the wealth of the criminal defendant (e.g., drug dealers).

PER CURIAM.
The issue in this tax refund case is whether petitioners, whose investment portfolio includes tax-exempt bonds acquired shortly before and after the incurring of a home mortgage loan, are precluded from deducting the interest payments on that loan. After consideration of the briefs and argument of counsel, we affirm the decision of the Tax Court. T.C.Memo. 1973-141. Upon all the evidence the Tax Court was entitled to find, as it did, that the mortgage loan was made to assist petitioners in their investment program and, in particular, so that they could acquire more tax-exempt bonds as well as carry those earlier acquired. We agree with the Court that Section 265(2) of the Internal Revenue Code would not apply merely because a taxpayer incurred or continued indebtedness at the same time that he held tax-exempt securities. The question in every case is whether the facts establish a sufficiently direct relationship between the loan and the tax-exempts. A court may look to whether “the total impression given by the evidence leads to the conclusion that the taxpayer had the forbidden purpose.” Illinois Terminal R.R. v. United States, 375 F.2d 1016, 1022-1023, 179 Ct.Cl. 674 (1967). Here it could reasonably be inferred that the loan was taken out to free available cash resources for investment in tax-exempt securities. The loan, otherwise, might be thought to have made little economic sense. There was cash to pay the taxes and the return from the taxable savings accounts was seemingly insufficient, given petitioners’ bracket, to make it worthwhile to obtain a loan merely to keep them intact. We rely in other respects upon the reasoning of the Tax Court.
The decision of the Tax Court is affirmed.

Question: This question concerns the first listed appellant. The nature of this litigant falls into the category "natural person (excludes persons named in their official capacity or who appear because of a role in a private organization)". Which of these categories best describes the income of the litigant?
A. not ascertained
B. poor + wards of state
C. presumed poor
D. presumed wealthy
E. clear indication of wealth in opinion
F. other - above poverty line but not clearly wealthy
Answer:

Answer: C