Court Opinion

ID: 9642400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:56:35.502887+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:46.802550
License: Public Domain

AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
While this case is not free from doubt, I think the facts do not bring it within the statute. Essentially the Brooklyn Trust Company as trustee of various common-law trusts does nothing more than commingle the assets of these trusts under lawful authority. The beneficiaries have no legal interest in the composite fund which is owned and managed by the Brooklyn Trust Company as trustee in various capacities. In other words, it is owned and managed by one person, the Brooklyn Trust Company — the same person that is the common-law trustee of all the trusts. The interest of the trustee in its various capacities is only as owner of a fund in which the trusts have undivided shares. There is no more ground for imposing separate taxes on it than upon the earnings of a partnership as separate from the income of the individual partners. *869None of the decisions have gone far enough to cover the present case in terms, and there seems to be no reason for imputing such an intention to the Revenue Act. In my opinion, the order of the Board of Tax Appeals should be reversed.