Northern Telecom Inc. & Subsidiaries - Page 8




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          rights in the telephone systems that were transferred to the                
          subsidiary.                                                                 
               Generally, State law determines what rights and interests              
          are transferred by contract for Federal income tax purposes.  See           
          Hoven v. Commissioner, 56 T.C. 50, 55 (1971).  Although the                 
          record does not reveal the jurisdiction to which the purchase               
          agreements are subject, we assume that the purchase agreements              
          are subject to the same jurisdictions as the assignment and                 
          delegation agreements.  Those jurisdictions are New York,                   
          Tennessee, or Texas.  Each of these States has enacted statutes             
          declaring that an agreement that purports to sell property in the           
          future, when the property is either nonexisting or unidentified             
          at the time of agreement, does not constitute a sale of                     
          underlying property.  See N.Y. Com. Law sec. 2-105 (McKinney                
          1962); Tenn. Code Ann. sec. 47-2-105 (1963); Tex. Bus. & Com.               
          Code Ann. sec. 2.105 (West 1967).  Instead, a present sale of               
          nonexisting property or goods operates as a contractual                     
          obligation to buy and sell property at a later date.  A                     
          contractual right to purchase nonexisting property in the future            
          is not a property interest in the underlying property.  See Hoven           
          v. Commissioner, supra at 56-57; Armstrong v. Commissioner, 6               
          T.C. 1166, 1173-1174 (1946), affd. 162 F.2d 199 (3d Cir. 1947).             
               The critical question is whether, in entering into the                 
          assignment and delegation agreements, the subsidiary received               





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