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determined a deficiency in the estate's income tax on the correct
theory that the same sum was income to the estate. The executor
paid the income tax in 1928. Later, in that same year, the
executor filed a claim for refund for the income tax paid and
sued for refund after the claim was denied.
In considering the issue before it, the Supreme Court
stated:
A serious and difficult issue is raised by the claim
that the same receipt has been made on the basis of
both income and estate tax, although the item cannot in
the circumstances be both income and corpus; and that
the alternative prayer of the petition required the
court to render a judgment which would redress the
illegality and injustice resulting from the erroneous
inclusion of the sum in the gross estate for estate
tax. * * * [Bull v. United States, 295 U.S. at 255;
emphasis added.]
The Supreme Court found that the estate's receipt of the sum
was properly taxable as income to the estate and that under the
facts of the case, "the item could not be both corpus and income
of the estate." See Bull v. United States, supra at 258.
Thus, the Supreme Court viewed the sum of money owed to
Bull's estate as an item. See id. at 255. We have no reason to
believe that the same sum may be defined as an item for income
tax purposes but be defined as something other than an item when
included in corpus for purposes of calculating the estate tax.
See id. at 256. In the case at hand, the same item (in terms of
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