Court Opinion

ID: 9444576
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:05:30.140859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:55.394403
License: Public Domain

KALODNER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I disagree with the majority’s holding that Sections 12(d) and 51(b) of the Code, as amended by the Revenue Act of 1948, can be applied retroactively for the years 1936-1945 in computing the tax limitation on long-term compensation received in 1948.
Congress specifically made these so-called “income-splitting” provisions of the Revenue Act of 1948 applicable to taxable years beginning after December 31, 1947.1
The courts cannot by “judicial legislation” change the specifically stated effective date of a tax law.
I don’t see, as did the majority, any doubtful question with respect to the effective date of the relief provisions of Sections 12(d) and 51(b). In my opinion Hofferbert v. Marshall, 4 Cir., 1952, 200 F.2d 648, subscribed to by the majority, was incorrectly decided and I would not follow it.
*749The fact that Congress has dealt with the situation in Section 1304(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 so as to preclude application of the rule laid down in Hofferbert v. Marshall does not relieve us of the obligation to refuse to follow it in the instant case. The inevitable import of that decision and the majority’s holding is that the courts can change effective dates provided by Congressional enactments, and the precedents they afford in that respect may well rise to haunt us, and other courts, in the future.
I should also like to note that I dissent from the majority’s adherence to the ruling in Ford v. Commissioner, 9 Cir., 1954, 217 F.2d 886, with respect to the second point presented by this appeal. I do so for the reasons so well stated by Judge Healy in his dissenting opinion in the Ford case.

. Section 305 Title 26, Internal Revenue Acts Beginning 1946, Cumulative Supplement p. 34.