Opinion ID: 1508174
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The April, 1928 Transaction

Text: On April 13, 1928, Mr. Peterson issued his check on the National City Bank to his wife for $408,000. The balance in bank to his credit on that date was $411,399.28. He had a previously existing balance of $6,399.28 and added to it $340,000 from the proceeds of sale of 4000 shares of United States Tobacco Company and also a check on his account with the Guaranty Trust Company of $15,000 and the proceeds of a demand loan from the National City Bank of $50,000. The check for $408,000 was deposited in Mrs. Peterson's personal account in the Guaranty Trust Company on April 16, 1928. On April 23, 1928, she executed an instrument similar in form to the prior trust instruments whereby she granted to herself as trustee funds aggregating $408,000 and created trusts as follows: One in her own favor for $100,000; one in favor of her daughter for $100,000; one in favor of her son for $100,000; one in favor of one of Mr. Peterson's sisters for $40,000; one in favor of his other sister for $48,000, and one in favor of his cousin for $20,000. In order to create the trust funds she deposited $408,000 on April 23, 1928, in her trustee account. On the same date she gave her check as trustee to her husband for that amount and he delivered to her his six notes dated April 23, 1928, due April 23, 1938, and corresponding in their several amounts with the respective trust funds. On April 25, 1928, Mr. Peterson paid off the $50,000 demand note and interest to the National City Bank. At each time notes were delivered Mr. Peterson assigned stock of the United States Tobacco Company as collateral thereto in sufficient amounts to protect the notes, and notes and collateral were kept by Mrs. Peterson in her individual safe deposit box and were held for her account as trustee. The case was reviewed by the whole Board of Tax Appeals. The majority reached the conclusion that the evidence showed lack of intention on Mr. Peterson's part to divest himself of complete dominion over the funds transferred to his wife and that the deposit of them in the trusts and their subsequent return to him in the form of loans was pursuant to an agreement between himself and his wife that the funds were to be used in only one way, i.e., to set up trusts and then to be returned to him. The prevailing opinion added that the transaction of July 17, 1924, was a pattern for the subsequent transactions which on three later occasions  two in the same year  were carried out under the same terms and pursuant to like agreement. Accordingly it was held that the notes were not given for full consideration in money or money's worth and the claims based upon them were not deductible under Section 303(a) (1) of the Revenue Act of 1926. Six members of the Board dissented on the ground that Mr. Peterson gave his wife the gifts unconditionally relying on the return of them to him as loans, not upon any agreement on her part, but wholly upon her lending in the exercise of her absolute discretion. The question is whether gifts were completed before the agreements that the moneys should be loaned to Mr. Peterson were made. If such was the case, and full legal and equitable rights in the moneys passed to Mrs. Peterson individually and thereafter to her as trustee of the various trusts, the trust estate furnished full consideration in money or money's worth for the notes upon which the claims which the taxpayer seeks to deduct rest. Judson v. Hatch, 171 App.Div. 246, 157 N. Y.S. 182; Matter of Hendricks' Estate, 163 App.Div. 413, 148 N.Y.S. 511; Stewart v. Whittemore, 3 Cal.App. 213, 84 P. 841. On the other hand, if the checks and proceeds reached Mrs. Peterson upon the condition or under the agreement that there should be loans of identical amounts to her husband by the trusts which she was to set up there were not completed gifts but only a circulation of funds from Mr. Peterson, or his banks, to his wife, from her  individually to herself as trustee, from her as trustee to him, and from him back to his banks to restore his accounts and wipe out his borrowings in cases where he borrowed in order to carry out the various transactions. If, because the transfers to Mrs. Peterson were conditioned upon loans to her husband, the trusts were not in fact furnishing the moneys, which came only from his own funds, the corpus of each trust would consist wholly of a note of Peterson that was no more than an unenforceable gratuitous promise to make a gift, based upon neither money nor money's worth. Johnson v. Commissioner, 2 Cir., 86 F.2d 710, 713; Holmes v. Roper, 141 N.Y. 64, 36 N.E. 180. American Law Institute, Restatement Trusts § 26. Counsel for the taxpayer argue that the husband first made a completed gift and only afterwards was it arranged that trusts should be set up and loans made to him out of the proceeds of the checks. We think, however, that the Board was justified in finding that all the steps taken were component parts of single transactions. They followed one another closely and the entire arrangement was agreed upon. The more Mrs. Peterson's testimony is read the more apparent it becomes that there was no clear separation of the discussion culminating in the alleged gift and the discussion about setting up the trusts and lending the money back to her husband. In the first place when he came in to dinner he only told her that he had a gift for her. It does not appear whether he turned over the checks to her then or later in the evening. Both the suggestion that she set up the trusts and the suggestion that she lend the corpus to her husband were made that evening and each suggestion came from him. Moreover, he must have made all the plans and arranged for the drafting of the trust deed previously, for the deed was executed the day following the conversation, was of considerable length and contained elaborate provisions. It is most unlikely that a lawyer would have been employed to draft the deed, would have drafted such an instrument and would have had it executed in a single day without any previous notice. Such trusts require consideration and revision and are not likely to be ordered, completed and executed within so short a period and there is no proof of urgency or haste. In addition to all this the numerous subsequent alleged gifts and loans made in the following years where the funds of the husband were transferred to his wife and used shortly afterwards for advances to himself deprive the transactions of reality. Such a succession of events indicates strongly that the transfers were never intended to be gifts but were mechanisms to serve as a means of giving the husband tax deductions without really parting with the control of his money. While he doubtless believed that he successfully avoided liability and that his position was immune, his belief depended on a mistake of law and did not furnish a basis for a deduction of the amount of his notes in computing estate taxes, because the only consideration for the notes was his own money. The taxpayer had the burden of proof and the questions before the Board were questions of fact. For the reasons we have stated we are of the opinion that there was a substantial basis for the finding that the alleged gifts had no reality and for treating the decision as coming within Johnson v. Commissioner, 2 Cir., 86 F.2d 710. That decision, upon the facts found, governed the result reached. Counsel for the taxpayer further contend that the acceptance by the government of the gift taxes and its allowance of interest payments on the notes as deductions in Mr. Peterson's income tax return estopped it from questioning the reality of the gifts. There could be no estoppel in the present case even if one were ever possible against the government because it had accepted payment of taxes that were theoretically inconsistent with a liability for others. Here there is no reason to suppose that the government officials knew anything about the circumstances under which the alleged gifts were made or that they did more than take the representations of the taxpayer that he had made gifts and was liable for taxes thereon, at their face value. Utah Power & Light Co. v. United States, 243 U.S. 389, 409, 37 S.Ct. 387, 61 L.Ed. 791. See, also, 49 Harv.L.Rev. 1281, at 1299 et seq. Order affirmed.