166
OCTOBER TERM, 1921.
Syllabus.
257 U. S.
occupying or using the land, unless within some reasonable time, to be fixed by that court, they apply for and obtain a right or license to use the same under the Act of February 15, 1901, or some other applicable statute, and as so modified is affirmed.
Decree modified and affirmed.
UNITED STATES v. PHELLIS.
APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF CLAIMS.
No. 260.
Argued October 11, 1921.— Decided November 21, 1921.
- Substance and not form should control in the application of the Sixteenth Amendment and the income tax laws enacted under it. P. 168.
- The Income Tax Law of October 3, 1913, in declaring that the tax shall be laid on gains, profits and income derived from dividends, means, not that everything in the form of a dividend must be treated as income, but that income derived in the way of dividends shall be taxed. P. 168.
- Income defined (p. 160) as in Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U. S. 189.
- With the concurrence of 90% of the stockholders of a corporation, a plan of reorganization was effected, pursuant to which a new corporation with an authorised capital stock nearly four times as great in par value as the aggregate stock and bonded indebtedness of the old was formed under the laws of a different State, all the assets of the old were transferred to the new, as a going concern, including the good will and a large surplus, and, in consideration, the old corporation retained money enough to redeem part of its bonds and received (1) the new company's debenture, stock of par value sufficient to redeem the remainder, retire its own preferred stock and leave in its treasury an amount equal in par value to its own outstanding common stock, and (2) the new company's common stock of par value double the amount of the old company's outstanding common stock, which the latter immediately distributed to its common stockholders as a dividend, paying them two shares of the new for each of the old. Upon completion of the transaction, October 1, 1915, the personnel of the stockholders and officers of the two corporations was identical, the stockholders having pro-
