Lewis v. United States

This is a gift tax case which comes before us on cross-motions for summary judgment, with the essential facts undisputed. Plaintiff, now Nellie Lewis, first met her late husband, John J. Barni, Sr., at the end of the 1930’s, at a time when he was already separated from his first wife. They became close friends and associates. Starting in 1950, Mr. Bami opened and maintained a stock brokerage margin account in Nellie’s name, in order to conceal the account’s existence from his then spouse and from a judgment creditor. After his divorce in 1955 and remarriage to the taxpayer later that year,…