SEVIER TERRACE REALTY COMPANY, PETITIONER,
v.
COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, RESPONDENT

6th Cir. | 1964-02-20
No. 15409
327 F.2d 999 United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (1964)

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

The court held that the Tax Court's determination of land values was supported by substantial evidence and not clearly erroneous, and that the value of recreation lots should be treated as a capital expenditure.


Facts & Procedural History

This case involved a taxpayer's basis in 303 acres of land and the deductibility of 12 lots transferred to a recreation center. The Tax Court determin…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

This ease involved questions concerning the taxpayer’s basis of 303 acres of land known as Mount Ida Farm and located partly within and partly without the corporate limits of Kingsport, Tennessee. A further issue was presented as to whether the taxpayer in computing its income tax may deduct, as an ordinary and necessary business expense, the fair market value of 12 lots transferred to a social and recreation center to be used only by owners or residents in the taxpayer’s subdivision rather than handling it as a capital expenditure allocable to the basis of its unsold lots.

The parties agreed that taxpayer’s basis for the 303 acres was the fair market value of an undivided one-half interest in the land on March 11, 1922 and the fair market value of the other one-half on March 1, 1913.

The evidence as to values offered in the Tax Court by the taxpayer and the Government was sharply in conflict. It was carefully considered by Judge Raum of that court in a well written opinion. He determined the values on the respective dates somewhere between the values testified to by the taxpayer’s experts and the Government’s experts. He was of the view that the values testified to by the taxpayer’s experts were unrealistic and he did not credit them. The values determined by the Tax Court were within the range of the testimony of the expert witnesses. The court further took into account values placed on the land in earlier tax returns filed by predecessors in interest of the taxpayer which we think was proper. Robertson v. Routzahn, 75 F. 2d 537 (C.A. 6); Grill v. United States, 303 F. 2d 922 (Ct.Cl.); Campagna v. United States, 290 F. 2d 682 (C.A. 2); Marsack’s Estate v. Commissioner, 288 F. 2d 533 (C.A. 7). See also Interstate Life & Accident Ins. Co. v. RKO Teleradio Pictures, Inc., 318 F. 2d 73, 78 (C.A. 6), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 945, 84 S.Ct. 352.

In our opinion, the decision of the Tax Court with respect to the values of the land was supported by substantial evidence and is not clearly erroneous. We find nothing prejudicial to taxpayer in the Tax Court’s allocation of the basis.

We are also of the view that the value of the 12 lots contributed by taxpayer for a recreation center should be treated as a capital expenditure allocable to the basis of its unsold lots and is not deductible as a business expense. Country Club Estates, Inc. v. Commissioner, 22 T.C. 1283.

The decision of the Tax Court is affirmed on the opinion of Judge Raum reported in T.C. Memo. 1962 — 242.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw