Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Pierce

L. HAND, Circuit Judge.

Both th’e Commissioner and the taxpayer appeal from an order of the Tax Court, which expunged in part, and affirmed in part, a deficiency assessment for income taxes against the taxpayer for the year 1940. (The taxpayer has not pressed her appeal before us, and we understand it to be abandoned.) The taxpayer’s husband died on March 18, 1940, leaving a life insurance policy in the sum of $100,000, in which he had named her as the beneficiary. The policy first contained an unconditional

*389promise to pay to the taxpayer on the death of her husband, “the sum of $100,-000,” and…