Court Opinion

ID: 4496148
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2020-01-23 18:14:42.2436+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:04:03.333044
License: Public Domain

Murdock,
dissenting: I think the reasoning of the prevailing opinion upon the first point is unsound in that it fails to consider the correct method of determining the basis to which the petitioner is entitled. The petitioner acquired 5,000 shares of $100 par common of the American Chain Co. for $125,000 by purchase on December 31, 1915. He acquired another 5,000 shares of the same stock, together with 20,000 shares of preferred, on January 3, 1916, by transferring certain property to the American Chain Co. in exchange for the shares. The cost and basis for these shares was the fair market value of the property exchanged for them. That cost should be allocated between the common and preferred in proportion to the total fair market value of each received. The part allocated to the preferred is not used further in the present computation. The part allocated to the common, together with $125,000, the cost of the first 5,000 shares, forms the total basis of the 100,000 no par shares which the petitioner exchanged in 1923. It may be that the record does not show all of the values necessary to this computation. In that event the result reached in the prevailing opinion may be proper, because the Commissioner seems to concede that the basis of the 100,000 shares should be at least $1,000,000.
Mellott agrees with this dissent.