Eisner v. Macomber

Eisner v. Macomber
by Mahlon Pitney

Syllabus

Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920), was a tax case before the United States Supreme Court. It is notable for the following holdings:

a pro rata stock dividend, where a shareholder received no actual cash or other property, and retained the same proportionate share of ownership of the corporation as was held prior to the dividend, was not taxable income to the shareholder within the meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment
An income tax imposed by the Revenue Act of 1916 on such dividend was unconstitutional, even where the dividend indirectly represented accrued earnings of the corporation. Warning: template has been deprecated.

862892Eisner v. Macomber — SyllabusMahlon Pitney

Court Documents

Opinion of the Court

Wikipedia article

United States Supreme Court

Eisner v. Macomber

Argued: April 16, 1919. ---

Restored to Docket for Reargument, May 19, 1919.

Reargued Oct. 17 and 20, 1919.

Decided March 8, 1920.

Mr. Assistant Attorney General Frierson, for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 190-194 intentionally omitted]

Messrs. Charles E. Hughes and George Welwood Murray, both of New York City, for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 194-199 intentionally omitted]

Mr. Justice PITNEY delivered the opinion of the Court.

Notes[edit]

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse