Court Opinion

ID: 9694473
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:43:09.070638+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:01.248064
License: Public Domain

LITTLETON, Judge.
I cannot concur in the reasoning in the first part of the opinion of the court in this ease, but I agree that plaintiff is not entitled to recover, and that the petition must be dismissed under the decision in American Hide & Leather Co. v. United States, 284 U. S. 343, 52 S. Ct. 154, 76 L. Ed. 331. Under the rule announced in that case, all of the taxes due for the fiscal period January 1 to March 31, 1918, and for the fiscal years ending March 31, 1919 and 1920, were legally paid prior to the expiration of any statute of limitation, and the action of the Commissioner on February 10, 1926, in allocating the taxes paid for 1918 and 1919 in excess of the amounts due for the fiscal periods ending March 31, 1918 and 1919, to the tax for the fiscal year ending March 31,1920, was not, in the circumstances of this ease, a collection of the 1920 tax on that date. The tax due for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1920, because of the filing of calendar year returns for 1918 and 1919, was legally paid in advance on and before April 25,1921. Sections 607 and 609 of the Revenue Act of 1928 (26 USCA §§ 2607,. 2609), on which plaintiff wholly relies, are not applicable in this ease. I find no reason therefore to discuss them. Even if the various claims for refund filed *290by plaintiff bad been sufficient in law and timely filed, there could be no recovery in this ease, since there was no collection out of time nor was there any overpayment.
Plaintiff filed calendar year returns for 1918 and 1919 and the taxes paid on the basis of a calendar year were in each instance in excess of the tax due for the fiscal period ending within the calendar year. For the calendar year 1918 there was a payment of $11,-097.37 in excess of the tax due for the three months’ fiscal period ending March 31, 1918. This amount was an advance payment on account of the correct tax for the next fiscal year beginning in 1918 and ending in 1919. Similarly the excess payment for 1919 over the tax due for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1919, was $28,988.40, which was a legal payment in advance on account of the tax due for the fiscal year beginning April 1, 1919, and ending March 31, 1920. When the total tax paid for 1918 was applied to the total tax due for the three months’ fiscal period ending March 31, 1918, and the excess advance payment on account of the tax due for the fiscal year beginning April 1 and ending March 31, 1919, was applied to the total tax for that period, there remained an excess payment in 1919 of $40,085.77 which was a legal payment in advance on account of the tax due for the fiscal year beginning April 1, 1919, and ending March 31,1920. A fiscal-year return was filed for the taxable year ending March 31, 1920', upon which a tax of $31,050.62 was due. The advance payment of $40,085.77 made on account of the tax due for the fiscal year ending March 31,1920, exceeded the correct tax for that year by $9,-579.46. The amount of $1,786.15, of the last-mentioned amount, was timely and properly credited by the Commissioner to unpaid taxes for the fiscal years subsequent to March 31, 1920, and $7,793.31 was duly refunded.
Since the taxpayer kept its boobs on a fiscal year basis and filed calendar year returns for 1918 and 1919’, paying a tax in each of those years in excess of the tax due for the fiscal years ending within the calendar years, the excess payment for 1918 was a legal payment in advance of the tax due for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1919', and the resulting excess payment of $40’,085.77 for 1919 was a legal payment in advance of the tax due for the fiscal year 1920’; the allocation of such amounts by the Commissioner on February 10, 1926, to the tax for the several fiscal years was not a collection of the tax for such fiscal years on that date under the American Hide & Leather Co. Case, supra. Instead of the taxes due for the fiscal years March 31, 1919 and 1920', being collected by credit after they were barred by the statute of limitations, such taxes, for the most part, were legally paid before they were due. P. L. Mann v. United States, 58 F. (2d) 467, 74 Ct. Cl. 415.