Davis v. Commissioner

119 T.C. 1 (2002)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P won $13,580,000 in the California State Lottery. P became entitled to receive the $13,580,000 in 20 equal annual payments of $679,000 (annual lottery payments), less certain tax withholding. The Lottery did not offer to any lottery winner the option to elect to receive a single lump-sum payment of the lottery prize. Sometime thereafter P assigned the right to receive the annual lottery payments to himself and his spouse as cotrustees of James and Dorothy Davis Family Trust. In 1997, Ps and Singer Asset Finance Company, LLC (Singer), entered into an agreement in exchange for a lump- sum payment to Ps by Singer of $1,040,000, Ps assigned to Singer their right to receive a portion (i.e., $165,000 less certain tax withholding) of each of 11 of the future annual lottery payments that they were entitled to receive during the years 1997 through 2007. After the assignment, Ps were entitled to receive only $514,000 (less certain tax withholding) of each of the $ 679,000 future annual lottery payments (less certain tax withholding) to which they had been entitled prior to that assignment. In Ps' 1997 joint return, they reported the assignment as a sale of a capital asset held for more than 1 year, a sale price of $1,040,000, a cost basis of $7,009, and long-term capital gain of $1,032,991. In that return, petitioners also reported as ordinary income the $514,000 payment that they received from the Lottery. The IRS determined that the monies received were ordinary income because rights to future annual lottery payments do not meet the definition of a capital asset according to the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. Ps petitioned.