Robert E. Stewart and Gloria H. Stewart v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

GEE, Circuit Judge:

Tax cases focus on questions of value. Two concerns are usually paramount: First, whether the taxpayer has a right to the favorable tax treatment claimed; second, whether the value assigned to the claimed right is accurate. In trying this case, however, the Tax Court focused upon whether the taxpayer had an invulnerable title to donated property, in some abstract sense, although no one having standing to do so had ever attacked the taxpayer’s title. We remand the case to the Tax Court to be tried on the correct issue: What is the value of the claimed right?

I. Background

The…