Court Opinion

ID: 6912936
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-23 22:30:16.004105+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:06:34.093278
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In permitting the deduction of losses from “theft”, I.R.C.1939, Sec. 23(e) (3), I.R.C.1954, Sec. 165(c) (3) and (e), I do not think that Congress intended to make the inquiry so broad as to include all forms of dishonesty, cheating, and swindling. See 41 Words and Phrases, Theft, p. 480 et seq.
The taxpayer turned over the money to Goldberg for the purpose and with the intent that it should be used to defraud other persons who might bet their money upon horses in ignorance of the fact that the races had been fixed. Now when he finds that, instead of defrauding others, he himself is the party defrauded, he is in no position to call on the Government *112to bear a part of his loss. Stone v. White, 301 U.S. 532, 534, 57 S.Ct. 851, 81 L.Ed. 1265; Commissioner v. Heininger, 320 U.S. 467, 474, 64 S.Ct. 249, 88 L.Ed. 171.
Finally and certainly, under the statute, to authorize deduction, the taxpayer must establish not only the theft but the loss therefrom. Alison v. United States, 344 U.S. 167, 170, 73 S.Ct. 191, 97 L.Ed. 186.
I, therefore, respectfully dissent.