Cottage Savings Association Case Summary

520 Words2 Pages

The facts of the above case are Cottage Savings Association exchange participation interests in its 252 mortgages to four savings and loan associations, getting back in return of 305 other mortgages that have the same fair market value in totality, however the fair market value of the mortgages that was sold is 2.4 million less than the original value. So, on its 1980 federal income tax return, cottage savings association claimed a deduction on their tax return, and the IRS refused to recognize the difference as a deductible loss. The Commissioner of IRS didn’t allow the deduction, because to be able to claim a deduction, exchanges should be materially different, and those are not materially different under 1001, which an exchange of property …show more content…

The Cottage savings’ transactions easily met the material difference test due to the fact that the participation interests exchanged accessed from loans that were made to different obligators and protected by different home, the exchanged interests demonstrated legally distinct entitlements. Commissioners argue that Section 1000 (a) states that to realize a gain or loss in the value of the property, the taxpayer must engage in “sale or disposition of property”, which means only the exchange of property can be disposition only if the transactions involved were materially different. Also, they argued that underlying mortgages were essentially economic substitutes, the participations interests exchanged are not materially different. The Commissioners viewed the exchanged as a similar one .The court responded by giving prior cases such as Eisner v Macomber, a case which defined with exchange of stocks between two parties, also other cases Phellis, Weiss, and Marr that nothing in those cases indicates that exchanges or properties must satisfy the such a subjective test to generate realization of a gain or loss. Also, the commissioner’s test is not compatible with the structure of code. The Cottage savings argue that material

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