Estate of Marshall v. Commissioner

OPINION.

Opper, Judge:

When the petitioner sold his stock in Johnson & Higgins as he was required to do by his underlying contract, measurement of the purchase price according to the size of the dividends to be declared for a specific future period seems to us to have been merely fortuitous. Petitioner parted with his stock in all respects as completely as though he had sold it on any other terms; what he was receiving was the purchase price and not dividends on stock, and the transaction would have been no different if the purchase price had been a specified amount in lieu of being indefinite.…