Court Opinion

ID: 9429500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:26:55.193919+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:19.924668
License: Public Domain

Justice Powell,
with whom Justice Rehnquist joins, dissenting.
The Court’s decision today rejects a longstanding principle of taxation, and creates in its stead a new and anomalous rule of law. Such action is best left to Congress.1
H-H
The Internal Revenue Service’s attempts to assess gift taxes on interest-free demand loans is a relatively new development in the field of tax law. The gift tax provisions of the Internal Revenue Code were enacted in 1932.2 For 34 years — a third of a century — the IRS enforced these provisions without any intimation that an interest-free loan would have gift tax consequences. The IRS first pursued its present position in 1966 in Johnson v. United States, 254 F. Supp. *34673 (ND Tex.).3 The District Court in Johnson rejected the argument that taxpayers who have made large interest-free loans also have made gifts equal to the value of the use of the money lent. Id., at 77. The Commissioner did not appeal the Johnson decision. Indeed, he waited seven years to announce his nonacquiescence in the outcome of that case. See Rev. Rui. 73-61, 1973-1 Cum. Bull. 408.
In 1977, the Commissioner first raised the issue before the Tax Court in Crown v. Commissioner, 67 T. C. 1060. Relying on the Johnson court’s holding and the relative novelty of the Commissioner’s position, the Tax Court refused to assess gift taxes on interest that could have been earned on borrowed money. Id., at 1063. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the decision. 585 F. 2d 234 (1978). The Commissioner did not seek review of the Crown decision in this Court. He did announce promptly the Service’s nonacquiescence.
The Tax Court reiterated its position in 1980 in the case sub judice. Not until 1982, when the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed the Tax Court in this case, had any court accepted the Commissioner’s belated interpretation of § 2501(a)(1).4 During the 18-year period that the *347Commissioner has pursued this position, Congress has not attempted to settle the controversy through legislation.5
Gift taxation, like most forms of federal taxation, is a complex area, made all the more complex by Congress’ frequent amendment of the underlying statute. Because the tax system is basically one of self-assessment, complexities and uncertainties in the gift taxation area put a heavy burden on taxpayers who conscientiously try to adhere to the dictates of the Tax Code. Courts should make a conscious effort to minimize this burden by refraining from any action that would destabilize an understanding of the tax laws long accepted both by the IRS and taxpayers.
As the above chronology illustrates, until 1982, a longstanding principle of gift tax law, supported by IRS inaction and judicial opinion, was that interest-free demand loans had no gift tax significance. Relying on this principle, taxpayers made loans, tax commentators suggested making loans,6 and *348tax counselors used loans as integral parts of complex taxation minimization plans.7 In my view, petitioners’ reliance also was justified.
Despite this justified reliance, the Court today subjects potentially all interest-free loans to gift taxation. The adverse effects of the Court’s holding could be substantial. Many taxpayers may have used interest-free loans as an important part of a comprehensive plan to sell their business to a son, to send a daughter to medical school, or to provide for the support of an elderly parent. Such plans are not revamped easily. In addition, the recipients of the loans may not be in a position to help the taxpayers/lenders avoid future gift tax liability by making immediate repayment. The borrowed funds may have been invested in fixed assets or the borrowers simply may have spent the money. The result, in any event, is the assessment of gift taxes that might have been avoided lawfully if the taxpayer could have anticipated the Court’s holding in this case. In light of the Commissioner’s decision over a 34-year span to attach no significance to such loans, and his lack of success over the past 18 years in attempting to tax such loans, the Court of Appeals’ decision is so fundamentally unfair that this Court should be unwilling to add its imprimatur.
II
There can be little doubt that the courts are not the best forum for consideration of the ramifications of the gift taxation of interest-free loans. Congress is the body that is best equipped to determine the rules that should govern. United States v. Byrum, 408 U. S. 125, 135 (1972); Commisioner v. Brown, 380 U. S. 563, 579 (1965). The Court implies that Congress has considered this issue and decided that interest-free loans involve a “transfer” of the use-value of the *349money. The Court bases its position in large part on a “plain language” argument. It states: “The language of [§§ 2501(a) (1) and 2511(a)] is clear and admits of but one reasonable interpretation . . . .” Ante, at 334. The Court also states that the Committee Reports in 1932 “make plain” that Congress intended to tax all “transfers” such as those involved in this case.
This is a singularly curious argument. In effect, the Court is saying that for 34 years (1932 until 1966) — despite the plain language of the statute and clear intention of Congress — the Commissioner slept on the rights of the United States. Moreover, in view of his relative inactivity until this suit was instituted in 1980 and pursued on appeal,8 it hardly can be said that the Commissioner was diligent if the Court today is correct as to what Congress “plainly” instructed him to do. Interestingly, until 1982 all three of the courts that had considered these statutes had found their language far from plain. In light of the apparent difficulty that the Commissioner and the IRS have had in discerning legislative intent from the statutory provisions at issue here, the preferable course would be to await a clear directive from Congress. Nevertheless, the Court, rather than deferring to a legislative resolution of the serious problems associated with this field, adopts an open-ended interpretation of § 2501(a) not even advanced until 1966 and not accepted by any court until 1982.
The most troublesome issue generated by the Court’s opinion is the scope of its new reading of the statute. The Court does not limit its holding to interest-free loans of money. The Court states: “We have little difficulty accepting the theory that the use of valuable property ... is itself a legally protectible property interest.” Ante, at 336. Under this *350theory, potential tax liability may arise in a wide range of situations involving the unrecompensed use of property. Examples could include the rent-free use of a home by a child over the age of minority who lives with his parents, or by a parent over the age of self-support who lives with her child. Taken to its logical extreme, this theory would make the loan of a car for a brief period a potentially taxable event.
The possibility that the generous use by friends or family of property such as homes and even spare bedrooms could result in the imposition of gift tax liability highlights the valuation problems that certainly will result from the Court’s holding. It is often difficult to place a value on outright ownership of items of real and personal property. Those difficulties multiply when the interest to be valued is the use of the property for varying lengths of time. Even in the simplest case — where the property that is borrowed is cash— valuation problems arise. In the three decided cases in which the Commissioner belatedly pursued the theory that the Court adopts today, the Service used three different methods for determining the interest rate that should be used to establish the use-value of the borrowed money.9 Thus, it is clear that the Court’s decision will generate substantial valuation problems.
*351The Court downplays the significance of its decision by “assuming] that the focus of the Internal Revenue Service is not on such traditional familial matters [as the use of cars or homes].” Ante, at 341. The Court also concludes that the Tax Code’s “generous exclusions, exceptions, and credits clearly absorb the sorts of de minimis gifts petitioners envision and render illusory the administrative problems that petitioners perceive.” Ante, at 342. In effect, the Court has chosen to turn its back on the ramifications of its decision.
The Court, aware of the potential for abuse of its new interpretation, “assume[s]” that the Internal Revenue Service will exercise the power conferred on it in a reasonable way. Ante, at 341. This assumption is not likely to afford much comfort to taxpayers and the lawyers and accountants who advise them. The Commissioner, acting with utmost goodwill, is confronted with a dilemma. This Court today holds that the plain language of the statute mandates, and that Congress intended, the “gift tax statute to reach all gratuitous transfers of any valuable interest in property.” Ante, at 334 (emphasis supplied). No discretion is given the Commissioner and the IRS to read “all” and “any” as meaning only such transfers and only such valuable interests in property that it seems reasonable to tax. The Court identifies no statutory basis for such discretion, and even if the Court itself undertook to confer it I am not aware that we have ever before “assumed” that tax laws would be enforced — not according to their letter — but reasonably.
l-H I — I
The Court’s answer to these concerns is that the exceptions and exemptions in the Tax Code will render most administrative problems “illusory.” Ante, at 342. Although the $10,000 annual per donee exclusion will shield many taxpayers from having to pay gift taxes on intrafamily loans, the taxpayer cannot know whether he has exceeded the annual limit until he has assigned a value to every “transfer” that *352falls within the Court’s definition. In particular, a taxpayer who has made outright gifts during the year, approaching in dollar value the amount of the applicable annual exclusion, must be concerned with the value of intrafamily loans. Once he has exceeded the exclusion, he must file a gift tax return, listing and describing each gift. IRC §6019(1) (1982 ed.); Treas. Reg. §25.6019-4.
Nor does it suffice to say that most taxpayers will be protected from payment of gift taxes by the Tax Code’s “lifetime exemption.” Regardless of the availability of an offsetting credit, all taxpayers who exceed the annual per donee exclusion must go through the uncertain process of valuing intrafamily loans and filing a gift tax return. Moreover, a taxpayer’s reduction of the unified credit lessens the amount of credit that will be available to offset estate taxes at the time of his death. In short, the net result of the Court’s decision will be to create potential tax liability for many taxpayers who have never been subject to it before, and create legal, tax accounting, and return filing nightmares for many others.
The Court also fails to discuss the anomalies that today’s decision will create in the tax laws. For instance, the Tax Code expressly provides that gifts are excluded from the gross income of the recipients for income tax purposes. IRC § 102. Under the Court’s holding, a gift will be imputed with respect to each interest-free loan, with potential gift tax consequences for the lender. In many, perhaps most, cases, however, the borrowed funds will not generate specifically identifiable income. As a result, the lender may have gift tax liability, but the borrower is unable to exclude a commensurate amount from his income under § 102. Also, under the Court’s reasoning, an interest-free loan to a charity entails a gift equal to the use-value of the funds loaned. Ordinarily, a gift to a charity is not subject to gift taxes and is deductible from a taxpayer’s gross income. IRC §§170 and 2522. Under the provisions of the Tax Code and regulations, however, an interest-free loan does not generate an income tax *353deduction and is subject to gift taxes. IRC § 2522(c); Treas. Reg. § 1.170A-7(d). Thus, an outright gift to a charity would provide an income tax deduction and would not be subject to gift tax, while a no-interest loan of the same amount would generate no income tax benefits and might generate gift tax liability.
None of the problems and anomalies I have outlined is insurmountable. They do involve, however, delicate issues of policy that should be addressed in the legislative forum.10 Instead of recognizing the longstanding practice of attaching no gift tax consequences to interest-free loans of money and property, and leaving these difficult issues to the body responsible for legislating tax policy, the Court now allows the Commissioner to decide these questions without guidance. That course is ill-advised and inequitable.11
I dissent.

 In United States v. Byrum, 408 U. S. 125 (1972), the Court stated:
“Courts properly have been reluctant to depart from an interpretation of tax law which has been generally accepted when the departure could have potentially far-reaching consequences. When a principle of taxation requires re-examination, Congress is better equipped than a court to define precisely the type of conduct which results in tax consequences.” Id., at 135.

 See Revenue Act of 1932, ch. 209, 47 Stat. 169. The provisions of the gift tax code at issue in this case, 26 U. S. C. §§ 2501(a)(1) and 2511(a), have remained virtually unchanged since its original enactment in 1932. Section 501 of the 1932 Act provided:
“(a) For the calendar year 1932 and each calendar year thereafter a tax, computed as provided in section 502, shall be imposed upon the transfer during such calendar year by any individual, resident or nonresident, of property by gift.
“(b) The tax shall apply whether the transfer is in trust or otherwise, whether the gift is direct or indirect, and whether the property is real or personal, tangible or intangible . . . .”

 The Court purports to find a “reasonable and well-established foundation” for that position in Treas. Reg. §25.2511-l(c). Ante, at 343, n. 11. The Court relies on the term “gift indirectly made” as contemplating an interest-free loan. The flaw in this reliance is that the regulations explicitly express a contrary intent: “A gift is incomplete in every instance in which a donor reserves the power to revest the beneficial title to the property in himself.” Treas. Reg. § 25.2511 — 2(c) (emphasis added). The language in both sections originated in the 1933 regulations. See Treas. Reg. 79, Arts. 2 and 3 (1933).

 The Commissioner has met with an equal'lack of success in his attempts to impute interest on interest-free loans and include it in the gross income of the borrower. Each of the seven Federal Courts of Appeals that has considered the question has refused to attach federal income tax consequences to interest-free loans in the absence of congressional action on the subject. See Hardee v. United States, 708 F. 2d 661 (CA Fed. 1983); Parks v. Commissioner, 686 F. 2d 408 (CA6 1982); Baker v. Commissioner, 677 F. 2d 11 (CA2 1982); Commissioner v. Greenspun, 670 F. 2d *347123 (CA9 1982); Beaton v. Commissioner, 664 F. 2d 315 (CA1 1981); Martin v. Commissioner, 649 F. 2d 1133 (CA5 1981); Suttle v. Commissioner, 625 F. 2d 1127 (CA4 1980).

 During the period between the Johnson decision and the Court of Appeals’ decision in this case, Congress amended the gift tax statute on eight separate occasions. See Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, Pub. L. 97-34, 95 Stat. 172; Revenue Act of 1978, Pub. L. 95-600, 92 Stat. 2763; Tax Reform Act of 1976, Pub. L. 94-455, 90 Stat. 1520; Internal Revenue Code Amendments of 1974, Pub. L. 93-625, 88 Stat. 2108; Excise, Estate, and Gift Tax Adjustment Act of 1970, Pub. L. 91-614, 84 Stat. 1836; Tax Reform Act of 1969, Pub. L. 91-172, 83 Stat. 487; Foreign Investors Tax Act of 1966, Pub. L. 89-809, 80 Stat. 1539; Pub. L. 89-365, 80 Stat. 32. Although Congress is presumed to be aware of judicial interpretations of a statute, none of the eight amending Acts altered the Johnson and Crown courts’ interpretation of the statute.

 See, e. g., Edwards, What Planning Opportunities Does CA-7’s No-Gift-Tax Holding in Crown Open Up?, 50 J. Tax. 168,170 (1979); Mitchell, Interest-Free Loans: Opportunities For Tax Planning, 65 A. B. A. J. 634, 636 (1979); Taicher, How to Use Interest-Free Loans in Family Tax Planning, 11 Practical Accountant 24 (Sept. 1978); Cooper, A Voluntary Tax? New Perspectives on Sophisticated Estate Tax Avoidance, 77 Colum. L. Rev. 161, 186 (1977); Tidwell, Lester Crown Points the Way to Estate Tax Reduction Under the 1976 Tax Reform Act, 55 Taxes 651, 655 (1977).

 One indication of the role that tax counselors have played in the use of tax-free loans is the fact that two law firms filed amicus briefs in this case on behalf of themselves and in support of petitioners’ position.

 As noted supra, at 346, the Commissioner did not appeal the District Court’s holding in Johnson, delayed for seven years before deciding to announce his nonacquiescence, and did not seek review by this Court of the Seventh Circuit’s opinion in Crown.

 In Johnson v. United States, 254 F. Supp. 73 (ND Tex. 1966), the Service apparently computed the amount of the gift using the interest rate specified in the regulations for valuing annuities, life estates, terms for years, remainders, and reversions. Id., at 76; see Treas. Reg. §25.2512-5. In Crown v. Commissioner, 67 T. C. 1060 (1977), the Service used a rate that it considered reasonable under the circumstances. Id., at 1061. In this case, the rate was that specified in IRC § 6621 for determining interest due on underpayments or refunds of taxes. 690 F. 2d 812, 814, n. 4 (CA11 1982). The Service has urged yet another method in a recently docketed Tax Court case, LaRosa v. Commissioner, No. 29632-82. In LaRosa, the Service has arrived at a separate interest rate for each month the loan was outstanding. The monthly interest rates were provided by an “expert” who relied on estimated fair market interest rates considering the creditworthiness of the borrowers. On an annualized basis, the rates used in LaRosa range from 12.5% to 31.1%.

 I am not addressing the tax policy question whether there is a “loophole” that should be closed. It is my view that a long accepted interpretation of a tax statute should be changed only by Congress.

 In addition to my disagreement with the Court’s interpretation of § 2501(a), I find the application of that interpretation to petitioners particularly unfair. The Commissioner first announced his nonacquiesence in the Johnson decision in early 1973. The loans at issue here spanned from 1971 to 1976. Thus, for two of the years for which the Commissioner assessed gift taxes, petitioners would have had no way of knowing that the outstanding interest-free loans might have gift tax consequences. In my view, retroactive application of the Court’s holding in cases such as this is so fundamentally unfair that it would constitute an abuse of the Commissioner’s discretion. See Central Illinois Public Service Co. v. United States, 435 U. S. 21, 34 (1978) (Brennan, J., concurring).