- 7 - to make repayment. Dennis v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1997-275. In many instances, repayment is simply made out of future earned commissions. Where the repayments will be taken only from future commissions earned, and the agent will not become personally liable in the event that the future income does not cover the repayment schedule, the payments will constitute income to the agent for each year to the extent he received them. Moorman v. Commissioner, 26 T.C. 666, 673-674 (1956). These payments are nothing more than disguised salary. Beaver v. Commissioner, 55 T.C. 85, 90 (1970). However, in the situation where the advances are actually loans, when the repayments are offset directly by the future earned commissions, then the agent will have either commission income or cancellation of indebtedness income at the time of the offsets. Cox v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1996-241; cf. Warden v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1988-165. Although petitioner’s employment with American terminated in 1994, he continued to earn renewal commissions on policies he had sold before his departure. As provided in the settlement agreement, instead of paying these commissions to petitioner, American credited his account showing outstanding advances in accordance with his settlement agreement with American. When American made the advances to petitioner, he was not taxable on them because they were in effect loans. See Beaver v. Commissioner, supra at 91. When the commissions he earned afterPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011