Cowles v. United States

Plaintiff sues to recover income taxes paid by him for the year 1934, which taxes, he argues, should not have been paid by him but by a trust of which he was the principal beneficiary. The tax rate would have been lower if the tax had been assessed against the trust, because the income of the trust was smaller than plaintiff’s income. Plaintiff is willing to have subtracted from the amount which he paid and here sues for, the amount which, he urges, the trust should have paid.

Plaintiff was the principal beneficiary of the William H. Cowles, Jr. Trust, set up by plaintiff’s father in 1922 when…