Court Opinion

ID: 4499387
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2020-01-23 18:16:25.977063+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:17.386479
License: Public Domain

*346OPINION.
SteRnhagen:
The petitioner seeks to prove itself within section 303, Revenue Act of 1918, which is as follows:
That if part of the net income of a corporation is derived (1) from a trade or business (or a branch of a trade or business) in which the employment of capital is necessary, and (2) a part (constituting not less than 30 per centum of its total net income) is derived from a separate trade or business (or a distinctly separate branch of the trade or business) which if constituting the sole trade or business would bring it within the class of “ personal service corporations,” then (under regulations prescribed by the Commissioner with the approval of the Secretary) the tax upon the first part of such net income shall be separately computed (allowing in such computation only the same proportionate part of the credits authorized in sections 311 and 312), and the *347tax upon the second part shall be the same percentage thereof as the tax so computed upon the first part is of such first part: Provided, That the tax upon such second part shall in no case be less than 20 per centum thereof, unless the tax upon the entire net income, if computed without benefit of this section, would constitute less than 20 per centum of such entire net income, in which event the tax shall be determined upon the entire net income, without reference to this section, as other taxes are determined under this title. The total tax computed under this section shall be subject to the limitations provided in ‘section 302.
The evidence indicates clearly enough that the activities of petitioner are so closely related one to the other and each to the whole that there is neither a separate trade or business nor a distinctly separate branch of the trade or business. As an automobile insurance agent it found a means of increasing its business by financing the purchase of the automobiles upon which it negotiated insurance, and as a further step in this financing it arranged to place loans for the trust company. No one of these was distinct. The costs of the entire business were undividedly applicable to all and the attempt of petitioner’s accounting representative to segregate and allocate expenses was not satisfactory. The entire personnel of the business was, so far as the evidence shows, devoted to all its activities, and the only clearly separate factor was the commissions received from the trust company.

Judgment will lye entered for the Commissioner.