56
Opinion of the Court
primary purpose of liquidating and distributing the assets transferred to it, and if its activities are all reasonably necessary to, and consistent with, the accomplishment of that purpose." 26 CFR § 301.7701-4(d) (1991).
The Miami Center Liquidating Trust clearly fits this description. The plan not only describes the entity as a trust, but also created it for the express purpose of liquidating Gould's estate and distributing it to creditors.
Respondent Smith, moreover, acted as the fiduciary of this trust. The Internal Revenue Code defines "fiduciary" as a "guardian, trustee, executor, administrator, receiver, conservator, or any person acting in any fiduciary capacity for any person." 26 U. S. C. § 7701(a)(6). A Treasury Regulation further specifies:
" 'Fiduciary' is a term which applies to persons who occupy positions of peculiar confidence toward others, such as trustees, executors, and administrators. A fiduciary is a person who holds in trust an estate to which another has the beneficial title or in which another has a beneficial interest, or receives and controls income of another, as in the case of receivers." 26 CFR § 301.7701-6 (1991).
The bankruptcy plan, as noted above, assigned the property of Gould's estate to the trustee and gave him powers consistent with this definition. Smith therefore acted as the fiduciary of a trust within the meaning of § 6012(b)(4).
The respondents raise two principal objections to this conclusion. First, they argue that Gould must pay the Miami Center Liquidating Trust's income taxes under the so-called "grantor trust" rules in the Internal Revenue Code. See 26 U. S. C. §§ 671-677. They note, in particular, that Treasury Regulation § 1.677(a)-1(d) specifies that "a grantor is, in general, treated as the owner of a portion of a trust whose in-
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