Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Wodehouse (337 U.S. 369)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 13, 1949 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 337 U.S. 369 · 69 S. Ct. 1120
- Docket
- No. 84
- Argued
- December 10, 1948
- Decided
- June 13, 1949
- Term
- October Term 1948
- Vote
- 5–3
- Majority author
- Justice Burton
- Issue area
- Federal Taxation
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Burton (wrote), Justice Reed, Justice Black, Justice Rutledge
- Dissenting
- Justice R. H. Jackson, Justice Frankfurter (wrote), Justice Murphy
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Burton delivered the opinion, of the Court. . The question before us is whether certain sums received in 1938 and 1941, by the. respondent, as a nonresident alien author not engaged in trade or business within, the United States and not having an office or place of business therein, were required by the Revenue Acts of the United States to be included in his gross income for federal tax purposes. Each of these sums had been paid to him in advance and respectively for an exclusive serial or book right throughout the United States in relation to a specified original story written by him and ready to be copyrighted. The answer turns upon the meaning of “gross income from sources within the United States” as that term was used, limited and defined in §§ 212 (a), 211 and 119 of the Revenue Act of 1938, and the Internal Revenue Code, as amended in 1940 and 1941. For the reasons hereinafter stated, we hold that these sums eách came within those kinds of gross income from sources within the United States that were referred to in those Acts as “rentals or royalties for the use of or for the privilege of using in the United States . . . copyrights, . . . and other like property,” and that, accordingly, each of these sums was taxable under one or the other of those Acts. The respondent, Pelham G. Wodehouse, at the times material to this case, was a British subject residing…
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