Court Opinion

ID: 9443859
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:32:28.366755+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:37.688420
License: Public Domain

GOODRICH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
With the conclusion that the decision of the tax court is not clearly erroneous on the general question of value in this case I have no disagreement. But I cannot go along with the addition of United States excise tax to sale price in ascertaining value. The reason is well set out in the discussion found in the majority opinion. If Mrs. Publicker gave these diamonds to her daughter and her daughter gave them to a friend and that friend gave them to another friend there would not, I take it, be additional sums added to value as a result of each transfer. But if the diamonds went through this same number of sales transaction somehow or other the value is supposed to be increased by the amount of tax involved in each instance. That seems to me to he incongruous. Some incongruities are unavoidable in tax law hut this is one which seems to me as avoidable as it is obvious.