Herbert L. Sedam and Ruth I. Sedam v. United States

TONE, Circuit Judge.

The government appeals from a judgment of the District Court holding that a taxpayer was entitled to charitable deductions on his federal income tax returns under section 170 of the Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. § 170) for payments made to a retirement home in connection with placing his mother in the home for her lifetime. We reverse that judgment.

Plaintiff Herbert L. Sedam, whom we shall call the taxpayer (his wife is a party only because she signed the returns), sought in 1963 to have his mother admitted to the Methodist Home for the Aged, a non-profit charitable…