Charles Horton Devers - Page 7

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          satisfaction of the obligation ordered by the PDL issued in the             
          first, inchoate marital dissolution proceeding.  To find an                 
          answer, we must decide whether petitioner’s payment to Mr. Dubin            
          was pursuant to an obligation that would have been extinguished             
          by Ms. Devers’ death under either the terms of the PDL itself or            
          Missouri law.  See Altmann v. United States, 89 AFTR 2d 485, 490,           
          2002-1 USTC par. 50,275, at 83,614 (E.D. Mo. 2001).  Given that             
          the PDL is silent on the issue, we turn to State law.                       
               “Although Federal law controls in determining petitioner’s             
          income tax liability * * *, State law is necessarily implicated             
          in the inquiry inasmuch as the nature of petitioner’s liability             
          for the payment” was based in Missouri law.  Berry v.                       
          Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2000-373, affd. 36 Fed. Appx. 400 (10th            
          Cir. 2002); see also, e.g., Sampson v. Commissioner, 81 T.C. 614,           
          618 (1983), affd. without published opinion 829 F.2d 39 (6th Cir.           
          1987).  In Commissioner v. Estate of Bosch , 387 U.S. 456, 465              
          (1967), the Supreme Court addressed the means for determining               
          State law in the context of a Federal tax case and stated:                  
               the State’s highest court is the best authority on its                 
               own law.  If there be no decision by that court then                   
               federal authorities must apply what they find to be the                
               state law after giving “proper regard” to relevant                     
               rulings of other courts of the State.  In this respect,                
               it may be said to be, in effect, sitting as a state                    
               court.                                                                 









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