Arrowsmith v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

In Arrowsmith v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 344 U.S. 6, 73 S.Ct. 71, 97 L. Ed. 6 (1952), there was involved a transferee liability of two taxpayers. One of them alone was also liable as he had secretly profited from a breach of his fiduciary relationship. In that capacity he would have been liable for all of the transferor's debt. The two taxpayers, however, each paid half. The Court held at p. 9, 73 S.Ct. 71, that both must alike be denied a business loss deduction, and that the second could not claim a different tax treatment because of a greater potential loss that did not materialize.