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of substance-over-form doctrine); Harrison v. Schaffner, 312 U.S.
579, 583 (1941) (application of assignment of income doctrine).
In Hudspeth v. United States, supra, the taxpayer, who was
an 81.5-percent shareholder, a director, president, and treasurer
of a corporation, donated to various charitable organizations
stock in the corporation, which had previously adopted a plan of
liquidation pursuant to resolution by its board of directors and
ratification by the shareholders. The Court of Appeals for the
Eighth Circuit rejected the taxpayer's contention “that the date
of the gift preceded the time when an enforceable right to the
liquidation proceeds accrued (i.e., when the corporation's board
passed the final resolution of dissolution)” and, instead,
focused on the reality and substance of the events. Id. at 277,
280. Noting the taxpayer's continued control of the corporation
and the transferees' inability to vitiate the taxpayer's
intention to liquidate, the court determined that the affirmative
vote of the shareholders to liquidate the corporation was
sufficient to sever the gain from the stock such that the
transfer to the charities constituted a transfer of liquidation
proceeds rather than an interest in a viable corporation. Id. at
278-279. The court would not “eviscerate established principles
of anticipatory assignment of income by considering remote,
hypothetically possible abandonments in the face of unrebutted
evidence that the taxpayer intended to and did, in fact, complete
the liquidation of his corporation.” Id. at 280.
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