TAXATION OF PARTNERSHIP ASSETS RECEIVED BY A DECEASED PARTNER AND HIS ESTATE

The raising of funds to pay taxes will probably be a major problem of business men for many years to come. Closely rivaling it, however, is the problem of computing the tax. Though the economic definitions of income may be relatively simple, the complex business relationships necessitating equally complex accounting procedures often make the computation of income extremely difficult. This was demonstrated in the recent case of Helvering v. Enright\u27s Estate, a tax case arising out of the death of a law partner. At the time of his death there were three types of assets which had been acquired by the firm: cash, accounts receivable, and unfinished business for which a fee had not yet been determined. The immediate issue was whether these items had been accrued to the decedent during his lifetime, but the discussion opened up the problem of the correlation of the income taxes imposed upon the decedent and those imposed upon his estate