Court Opinion

ID: 9427083
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:41.814499+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:04.812758
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stewart,
concurring in the judgment.
Although agreeing with much that is said in the Court’s opinion, I join only in its judgment.
The so-called overnight rule of United States v. Correll, 389 U. S. 299, has nothing whatever to do with the definition of either “income” or “wages.” It is exclusively concerned with what deductions employees may take when they prepare their own tax returns.
The obligation of an employer to withhold upon wages depends not at all on what deductions his various employees may eventually report on their individual income tax returns. That is a question about which, as a matter of fact and of law, the employer can neither know nor care. The importation of the Correll rule into this case can do nothing, therefore, but confuse the issues actually before us.
I concur in the judgment of the Court because I think the reimbursements here involved were not, at the time they were made, “wages” within the meaning of § 3401 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 as interpreted by Treas. Reg. §31.3401 (a)-1 (b)(2).