Court Opinion

ID: 4496104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2020-01-23 18:14:40.900917+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:04:03.282083
License: Public Domain

Murdock,
concurring: The author of the prevailing opinion attempts to distinguish the present case from the Miller and McCarter cases on the ground that in the latter cases the delivery of the wrong certificate was made-by the taxpayer’s broker, while in the present case the wrong delivery was made either by the taxpayer himself to the broker or by a bank to the broker. I do not agree that the difference in the facts is a sound basis for distinguishing the cases. A broker, just like a bank, is merely the agent of the seller, and where it appears, as it did in the Miller and McCarter cases, that the certificate actually delivered was identifiable as that pertaining to a different lot of stock from the one which the taxpayer designated for sale, there is just as good reason for holding the seller to the basis applicable to the shares represented by the certificate actually *566delivered as there is in the present case. I agree with the result reached in the present case because I think that identification by certificates is a better method of identification than identification by designation to the broker. See William W. Miller, 31 B. T. A. 192, and my dissent in Estate of Uzal H. McCarter, 34 B. T. A. 535.
McMahon and Turner agree with the above.