Blackburn's Estate v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

WALLER, Circuit Judge

(specially concurring) .

I concur in the result but it seems to me that the Commissioner and The Tax Court were well justified in their constructions of the holdings of this Court in Barbour v. Commissioner, 5 Cir., 89 F.2d 474. Moreover, it seems to me that in view of the fact that community property is subject to the payment of community debts, and since community debts in the Barbour case were reduced or paid by the Executor out of community income, and liabilities against the share of the surviving spouse were thereby diminished, pro tanto, it could not rightly be said that the surviving widow, from an income tax standpoint, received no income, or taxable benefits from income, whereby she ought to have been freed from the obligation to pay the tax to the extent of the benefit thus received. I do not discern any recognition of this principle in the opinion of this Court in the Barbour case.