United States v. Henry Prentiss & Co.

Respondent (the plaintiff in the court below) brought suit .against the United States in a District Court to recover overpayments of income and excess-profits taxes for the years 1918 and 1920. The overpayments had come about, so it was claimed, from the undervaluation by the Commissioner of the respondent’s invested capital, with a consequent exaggeration of the profits to be taxed. Two items or classes of property were the subject of the con troversy. In each year there has been an omission to include the full value of the real estate; indeed the parties have stipulated that the value of…