- 46 - shown above, the wages were earned by and paid to him in the ordinary course of the corporation's business. The factual circumstances in Richard Hansen Land, Inc. v. Commissioner, supra, are distinguishable from the cases at bar. Here, the amounts distributed to the Family Trusts were calculated to take into account the after-tax proceeds that would remain available for their use in the joint asset purchases. Robert A. Page, as engineer of the plan, left little to chance. What we have before us is a purely tax-motivated scheme in the form of joint asset acquisitions for the purpose of transferring assets from peti- tioners to the Family Trusts with minimal tax liability. As the court in Saviano v. Commissioner, 765 F.2d 643, 654 (7th Cir. 1985), affg. 80 T.C. 955 (1983), recognized: The freedom to arrange one's affairs to minimize taxes does not include the right to engage in financial fantasies with the expectation that the Internal Revenue Service and the courts will play along. The Commissioner and the courts are empowered, and in fact duty-bound, to look beyond the contrived forms of transactions to their economic substance and to apply the tax laws accordingly. That is what we have done in this case and that is what taxpayers should expect in the future. We are satisfied that, on the basis of the record as a whole, petitioners acquired entire interests in the CGF and Lincoln Partnerships and then transferred the remainder interests therein to the Family Trusts. Accordingly, using Kornfeld v. Commissioner, supra, Lomas Santa Fe, Inc. v. Commissioner, 693 F.2d 71 (9th Cir. 1982), United States v. Georgia R.R. & Banking Co., 348 F.2d 278 (5th Cir. 1965), and Gordon v. Commissioner,Page: Previous 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 Next
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