Gitlitz v. Commissioner, 531 U.S. 206 (2001)

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206

OCTOBER TERM, 2000

Syllabus

GITLITZ et al. v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the tenth circuit

No. 99-1295. Argued October 2, 2000—Decided January 9, 2001

Shareholders of a corporation taxed under Subchapter S of the Internal

Revenue Code may elect a "pass-through" taxation system, under which the corporation's profits pass through directly to its shareholders on a pro rata basis and are reported on the shareholders' individual tax returns. 26 U. S. C. § 1366(a)(1)(A). To prevent double taxation of distributed income, shareholders may increase their corporate bases by certain items of income. § 1367(a)(1)(A). Corporate losses and deductions are passed through in a similar manner, § 1366(a)(1)(A), and the shareholders' bases in the S corporation's stock and debt are decreased accordingly, §§ 1367(a)(2)(B), 1367(b)(2)(A). However, to the extent that such losses and deductions exceed a shareholder's basis in the S corporation's stock and debt, the excess is "suspended" until that basis becomes large enough to permit the deduction. §§ 1366(d)(1)-(2). In 1991, an insolvent S corporation in which petitioners David Gitlitz and Philip Winn were shareholders excluded its entire discharge of indebtedness amount from gross income. On their tax returns, petitioners used their pro rata share of the discharge amount to increase their bases in the corporation's stock on the theory that it was an "item of income" subject to pass-through. They used their increased bases to deduct corporate losses and deductions, including suspended ones from previous years. With the upward basis adjustments, they were each able to deduct the full amount of their pro rata share of the corporation's losses. The Commissioner determined that they could not use the corporation's discharge of indebtedness to increase their bases in the stock and denied their loss deductions. The Tax Court ultimately agreed. In affirming, the Tenth Circuit assumed that excluded discharge of indebtedness is an item of income subject to pass-through, but held that the discharge amount first had to be used to reduce certain tax attributes of the S corporation under § 108(b) and that only the leftover amount could be used to increase basis. Because the tax attribute to be reduced here (the corporation's net operating loss) equaled the discharged debt amount, that entire amount was absorbed by the reduction at the corporate level and nothing remained to be passed through to the shareholders.

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