- 15 -
actually equaled 50 percent of the value of the real estate in
fee.
We also disagree with petitioner's assertion that his
transfer to the MPP was not a "sale or exchange". In
Commissioner v. Keystone Consol. Indus., Inc., 508 U.S. at 159,
the Supreme Court faced an analogous issue with respect to
property that had been transferred to satisfy an employer's
obligation to fund a qualified defined benefit plan. In
holding that the transfer was a sale or exchange subject to the
rules of section 4975, the Court noted that the meaning of the
term "sale or exchange" was well settled for income tax
purposes to include any transfer of property in satisfaction of
a monetary obligation. Id. at 158-159. The Court stated that
the Congress' use of that term in section 4975 generally
encompassed all "sales or exchanges", whether they be "direct
or indirect". Id. at 159. The Court, by way of example,
described a situation where a transfer of property to a plan
was outside the reach of that term by virtue of an exception
prescribed in section 4975(f)(3). The Court's example covered
an employer who transferred unencumbered property to a plan,
without satisfaction of an obligation to it. Id. at 161 n.2.
As stated by the Court with respect thereto: "A transfer of
encumbered property, like the transfer of unencumbered property
to satisfy an obligation, has the potential to burden a plan,
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