1930 BTA LEXIS 2391 | B.T.A. | 1930
Lead Opinion
On the facts we must hold against the petitioner on both of her contentions and find for the respondent, though not upon the grounds advanced by either of the contestants. Counsel for the respondent has not favored us with a brief, but from the record it appears that the payment of $225,000 was held to be a personal expense and therefore not deductible under the provisions of the law. Petitioner contends that it was either an ordinary and necessary expense of her business as “ owner and manager of property,” or that it was an outlay of capital and as such that it should bo added to the cost of the property acquired.
We do not believe that the amount of $225,000 constituted an expense of any kind, either business or personal; nor do we believe that it was a capital expenditure, or that petitioner acquired any property by the transaction. Bather, we think, it was a giving up, a relinquishment, of a part of what petitioner had assumed had come to her, but was found to have a seriously clouded title, a part of which she relinquished in order to secure a clear title to the remaining part. It is admitted that the attorneys for the claimant were able to secure substantial evidence tending to show mental incapacity on the part of the testator during at least one or two periods in the years from 1918 to 1921. We are not called upon to decide the mental condition of the testator on May 9, 1919, when he wrote the holograph will; nor to speculate upon the outcome of a suit, had the validity of the will been attacked in the courts. Obviously, the issue
Judgment will be entered for the respondent.