Summary
In Electro-Chemical Engraving Co., Inc., v. Commissioner, 311 U.S. 513, 61 S.Ct. 372, 85 L.Ed. 308, decided contemporaneously with the Hammel case, the loss sustained was upon the foreclosure of a mortgage and not of a land contract, and the court followed and applied the reasoning of the Hammel case. It is also urged that the chancery court, in the present case, merely approved a previous settlement agreement and an agreed release from personal liability by transfer of title, whereas in the Hammel case the court decreed foreclosure in an adversary proceeding.
Summary of this case from Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. BooksteinOpinion
No. 62.
Argued December 12, 1940. Decided January 6, 1941.
A loss sustained by a corporation upon foreclosure sale of its mortgaged property, held, in computing taxable income under the Revenue Act of 1934, deductible only to the limited extent allowed by §§ 23(j) and 117(d) for losses from "sales" or exchanges of capital assets. Helvering v. Hammel, ante, p. 504, followed. P. 514. 110 F.2d 614, affirmed.
Mr. George P. Halperin, with whom Mr. Bernard S. Barron was on the brief, for petitioner.
Mr. Norman D. Keller, with whom Solicitor General Biddle, Assistant Attorney General Clark, and Mr. Sewall Key were on the brief, for respondent.
This is a companion case to Helvering v. Hammel, ante, p. 504.
The question is whether the loss suffered by petitioner on foreclosure sale of his mortgaged property, acquired for profit, may be deducted in full from gross income or only to the extent provided by § 117(d) of the 1934 Revenue Act. The statutory provisions involved are those of the 1934 Act relating to capital gains or losses, particularly "losses from sales or exchanges of capital assets" considered in the Hammel case which are made applicable to petitioner, a corporation, by § 23(f)(j).
The Board of Tax Appeals ruled that petitioner's loss was deductible in full from its ordinary income. The court of appeals for the second circuit reversed the Board, 110 F.2d 614, holding that the loss sustained by petitioner was a loss from a sale of capital assets, § 23(j), which under § 117(d) could be deducted from the gross income only to the extent of capital gains, plus $2,000. We granted certiorari, 310 U.S. 622, so that the case might be considered with the conflicting decision of the court of appeals for the sixth circuit in the Hammel case, 108 F.2d 753. For the reasons stated in our opinion in the Hammel case we think that this case was rightly decided below.
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE ROBERTS dissents.