double dip

The California Court of Appeal’s decision in Marriage of Blazer (2009) dealt not only with double dipping, but also with the exclusion of a company’s retained earnings when determining the owner’s income subject to an alimony obligation. After a 20 year marriage, Husband and Wife divorced, the husband retaining ownership of a berry distribution business. At trial, the husband’s expert testified that the berry company was thinly capitalized for its gross revenue. Wife’s expert agreed (if not grudgingly) that some earnings must be retained for capital reserves. The trial court excluded these retained earnings from the husband’s income for alimony purposes.

The husband’s expert also testified that retailers were seeking to eliminate middlemen, forcing the business to integrate vertically. The capital expenditures to purchase a growing farm and expand distribution were not added back to the company’s income, despite wife’s argument that husband “chose” to incur those expenses and would benefit from the enhancement in the company’s value. Again, the trial court adopted the position of the husband’s expert, over the opposition of wife’s expert.

On appeal, the California Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision under an “abuse of discretion” standard. The Court noted that there is no statutory definition of “income” for alimony cases in California, and it was unclear whether retained earnings could be properly categorized as “income” for alimony purposes. Case law held that the child support definition of “income” did not apply to alimony cases.

BVWire.com reported this week on a recent California case where the issue of double dipping was examined in the context of divorcing business owners:

The husband owned a produce company in California, valued at $5.6 million, ostensibly under the capitalization/excess earnings method. After a marriage of “long duration and substantial standard of living,” the trial court awarded the wife $20,000 per month in spousal support plus half ($2.8 million) of the business. The husband appealed, urging a blanket prohibition against double dipping—i.e., using the same stream of earnings to determine business value/property division and also support.

In Blazer v. Blazer (No. DR 38292, Aug. 25, 2009), the California Court of Appeals discusses the excess earnings method and, in particular, the myriad ways to distinguish personal from enterprise goodwill. It also considers the double-dipping precedent from other jurisdictions as well as its own cases concerning pension divisions. In the end, the court sidesteps the issue by finding insufficient proof that the husband’s expert in fact valued the business by capitalizing his future income stream. Moreover, “the earnings of an ongoing business…do not always derive solely from the personal efforts of its operator, nor is there evidence that such is the case here.” The court explicitly confirmed the equity of the spousal award in this case as well as the trial court’s implicit determination that there was no double counting of the husband’s income.

Thus, the question remains open in California and elsewhere—especially for cases concerning owners of a professional firm or solo practice whose interests are valued under the excess earnings method. Look for a full summary of Blazer and our continuing analysis of double dipping in the November Business Valuation Update™.

This weekend I am in Chicago to attend the BVR Divorce Conference. I will read the case and many others while I am there, so I will have much to report about when I return!

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently took up the case of Menard v. Commissioner, 560 F.3d 620 (2009), considering whether the CEO of a privately-held company was receiving a dividend disguised as salary from the business he controlled. The CEO whose salary was questioned was John Menard, founder and controlling shareholder of Menards, a chain of retail hardware and building supply stores. The Tax Court took the position that John Menard’s $20 million salary was really a disguised dividend because it was much greater than the salaries of the Home Depot and Lowe’s CEOs, who earned $2.8 million and $6.1 million respectively.

The appellate court’s opinion in this case is so well-researched that I cannot help but include large blocks of text, starting with its introduction to the subject:

The Internal Revenue Code allows a business to deduct from its taxable income a “reasonable allowance for salaries or other compensation for personal services actually rendered,”[or] “payments purely for services.” Occasionally the Internal Revenue Service challenges the deduction of a corporate salary on the ground that it’s really a dividend. A dividend, like salary, is taxable to the recipient, but unlike salary is not deductible from the corporation’s taxable income. So by treating a dividend as salary, a corporation can reduce its income tax liability without increasing the income tax of the recipient. . . As a result of a change in law in 2003, dividends are now taxed at a lower maximum rate than salaries—15 percent, versus 35 percent for salary. 26 U.S.C. § 1(h)(11). This makes the tradeoff more complex; although the corporation avoids tax by treating the dividend as a salary, which is deductible, the employee pays a higher tax. But depending on its tax bracket, the corporation may still save more in tax than the employee pays, and in that event, if the employee owns stock in the corporation, he may, depending on how much of the stock he owns, prefer dividends to be treated as salary. . . . Even before the change in the Internal Revenue Code, treating a dividend as salary was less likely to be attempted in a publicly held corporation, because if the CEO or other officers or employees receive dividends called salary beyond what they are entitled to by virtue of owning stock in the corporation, the other shareholders suffer. But in a closely held corporation, the owners might decide to take their dividends in the form of salary in order to beat the corporate income tax, and there would be no one to complain—except the Internal Revenue Service.

The usual case for forbidding the reclassification (for tax purposes) of dividends as salary is thus that “of a corporation having few shareholders, practically all of whom draw salaries,” Treas. Reg. § 1.162-7(b)(1), especially if the corporation does not pay dividends (as such) and some of the shareholders do no work for the corporation but merely cash a “salary” check. A difficult case—which is this case—is thus that of a corporation that pays a high salary to its CEO who works full time but is also the controlling shareholder. The Treasury regulation defines a “reasonable” salary as the amount that “would ordinarily be paid for like services by like enterprises under like circumstances,” § 1.162-7(b)(3), but that is not an operational standard. No two enterprises are alike and no two chief executive officers are alike, and anyway the comparison should be between the total compensation package of the CEOs being compared, and that requires consideration of deferred compensation, including severance packages, the amount of risk in the executives’ compensation, and perks.

Courts have attempted to operationalize the Treasury’s standard by considering multiple factors that relate to optimal compensation. [Citations omitted.] We reviewed a number of these attempts in Exacto Spring Corp. v. Commissioner, 196 F.3d 833 (7th Cir.1999), and concluded that they were too vague, and too difficult to operationalize, to be of much utility. Multifactor tests with no weight assigned to any factor are bad enough from the standpoint of providing an objective basis for a judicial decision [citations omitted]; multifactor tests when none of the factors is concrete are worse, and that is the character of most of the multifactor tests of excessive compensation. . . . All businesses are different, all CEOs are different, and all compensation packages for CEOs are different.

In Exacto, in an effort to bring a modicum of objectivity to the determination of whether a corporate owner/employee’s compensation is “reasonable,” we created the presumption that “when . . . the investors in his company are obtaining a far higher return than they had any reason to expect, [the owner/employee’s] salary is presumptively reasonable.” But we added that the presumption could be rebutted by evidence that the company’s success was the result of extraneous factors, such as an unexpected discovery of oil under the company’s land, or that the company intended to pay the owner/employee a disguised dividend rather than salary. 196 F.3d at 839.

The strongest ground for rebuttal, which brings us back to the basic purpose of disallowing “unreasonable” compensation, is that the employee does no work for the corporation; he is merely a shareholder. [Citations omitted.] Comparison with the compensation of executives of other companies can be helpful if—but it is a big if—the comparison takes into account the details of the compensation package of each of the compared executives, and not just the bottom-line salary. This qualification will turn out to be critical in this case.

Having explained the context of this case, the Circuit Court next explained why the Tax Court’s analysis was wrong, especially its comparison of John Menard’s salary to the salaries earned by the Home Depot and Lowe’s CEOs in that year. The appellate court first rejected the notion that the taxpayer’s $17 million bonus, which was equal to 5% of the company’s net income before taxes, was more likely to be a dividend than salary because it was paid at year’s end; was approved by a board that the CEO controlled without outside directors; must be returned if the IRS should disallow the company’s tax deduction as salary; and exceeded the salaries earned by the CEOs of publicly-traded competitors (Home Depot and Lowe’s). The appellate court noted that the managers of privately-held companies often face greater risk than public companies, warranting greater reward for success:

Of particular importance to this case is the amount of risk in the compensation structure. Risk in corporate compensation is significant in two respects. First, most people are risk averse, and the scholarly literature on corporate compensation suggests that risk aversion is actually an obstacle to efficient corporate management because managers tend to be more risk averse than shareholders. Shareholders can diversify the risk of a particular company by owning a diversified portfolio, but a manager tends to have most of his financial, reputational, and “specific human” capital tied up in his job. [Citations omitted.] So the riskier the compensation structure, other things being equal, the higher the executive’s salary must be to compensate him for bearing the additional risk.

That is not a critical consideration in this case because, as we said, management and ownership in Menards are not divorced. But a second significance of risk in a compensation structure is fully applicable to this case. A risky compensation structure implies that the executive’s salary is likely to vary substantially from year to year—high when the company has a good year, low when it has a bad one. Mr. Menard’s average annual income may thus have been considerably less than $20 million—a possibility the Tax Court ignored. Had the corporation lost money in 1998, Menard’s total compensation would have been only $157,500—less than the salary of a federal judge—even if the loss had not been his fault. The 5 percent bonus plan was in effect for a quarter of a century before the IRS pounced; was it just waiting for Menard to have such a great year that the IRS would
have a great-looking case?

The appellate court also noted that the Tax Court had not considered the total compensation packages of the CEOs from the public companies, such as equity compensation, severance packages, retirement plans, and perks. The appellate court noted that the CEO of Home Depot, whose salary was used as a benchmark, actually earned $124 million over six years, and a $210 million severance package when he was forced out. The Court of Appeals also noted that the Tax Court had not considered the salaries of other senior managers, both of Menards and of the benchmark public companies, which may have indicated that this CEO was more productive and delegated less than average. The Court observed that John Menard worked 14 to 16 hours per day, six to seven days per week.

The Seventh Circuit adopted a skeptical, even sarcastic, tone toward the Tax Court’s remark that the owner of a business has no need for incentive compensation because ownership is incentive enough. The Court of Appeals held that owners should not be treated differently from other managers.

Having concluded that John Menard’s $20 million salary was not excessive, the Court of Appeals reversed.

This is the last in a series of posts containing summaries of Pennsylvania case law on the issue of double dipping in divorce. “Double dipping” occurs when an income-producing asset (such as a pension or business) is counted as marital property subject to equitable distribution, as well as income subject to an alimony or child support obligation.

Steneken v. Steneken, 873 A.2d 501 (N.J. 2005).

Although it is not a Pennsylvania decision, no discussion of double dipping would be complete without Steneken, a 2005 decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court. In this case, the husband was the sole owner of a business which was marital property subject to equitable distribution. The valuation expert performed a normalization of the owner’s compensation in his report, reducing the company’s salary expense and thereby increasing the value of the company. In determining an alimony award, the husband argued that the court should consider his lower, normalized compensation instead of his actual salary (since the excess compensation had been capitalized as part of the business valuation and divided as marital property). The trial court accepted the husband’s argument and used his normalized salary instead of his actual salary.

An appeal ensued, and the case was remanded to the trial court because the intermediate appellate court held that the record was not fully developed. On remand, the trial court reversed its earlier position and used the husband’s actual salary to determine the proper amount of alimony.

The intermediate appellate court, reviewing New Jersey’s divorce statute, held that the prohibition on “double dipping” extended only to pensions and affirmed the trial court’s decision. The husband appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court to extend the principle to double dipping arising from the capitalization of earnings in the context of a business valuation. Since an income capitalization approach had been used by the valuation expert endorsed by the trial court, and was not challenged, the husband argued that he should not have to pay alimony from the excess compensation that had been capitalized and distributed as part of the value of the business.

The New Jersey Supreme Court disagreed, affirming the trial court’s decision to permit double dipping. Rather than adopting the intermediate court’s rationale, the New Jersey high court attacked the husband’s reasoning.

The logical flaw in defendant’s argument lies at its core. Defendant mistakenly equates the statutory and decisional methodology applied ni the calculation of alimony with a valuation methodology applied for equitable distribution purposes that requires that revenues and expenses, including salaries, be normalized so as to present a fair valuation of a going concern. Simply said, defendant’s charged mischaracterization of the issue here as one of “double counting” both misstakes the issue and ignores the fundamental principles that undergird related yet nonetheless severable alimony and equitable distribution awards.  As our statutory framework and decisional precedent make clear, the proper issue is whether, under the circumstances, the alimony awarded and the equitable distribution made are, both singly and together, fair and consistent with the statutory design. . . . Because we embrace the premise that alimony and equitable distribution calculations, albeit interrelated, are separate, distinct, and not entirely compatible financial exercises, and because asset valuation methodologies applied in the equitable distribution context are not congruent with the factors relevant to alimony considerations, we conclude that the circumstances here present a fair and proper method of both awarding alimony and determining equitable distribution.

The New Jersey court’s opinion is not convincing; other reasons might have been more forceful. For instance, the court might have started with the observation that a business valuation expert ordinarily has no expertise in executive compensation. To identify part of the owner’s salary as excessive is tantamount to saying that the business could hire someone to do the job for less, or conversely, the owner would earn less if he or she sought employment elsewhere. Such determinations are beyond the expertise of most valuation experts, and should not be relied upon to determine the owner’s earning capacity for alimony and support purposes. Yet, if those normalization adjustments are not suitable to determine the owner’s earning capacity, why should we rely on them for the business valuation?

The New Jersey court noted that if a different valuation methodology had been applied, there might be no normalization adjustment to the owner’s salary. That is true, in the case of an asset approach. However, an asset approach assumes liquidation of the company, not ongoing concern value. The owner’s excess compensation does not get capitalized under the asset approach, so there is no possibility of double dipping. In the market approach, normalization of the income statement or cash flow is performed before applying a multiplier. Therefore, the potential inconsistency perceived by the Court is illusory.

In a vigorous and well-reasoned dissent, three of the seven Justices enunciated a compromise position: that the trial court need not use normalized compensation when computing the owner’s alimony obligation but should have discretion to adjust the value of the business or the alimony award to alleviate the double dip.

This is the fourth in a series of posts containing summaries of Pennsylvania case law on the issue of double dipping in divorce. “Double dipping” occurs when an income-producing asset (such as a pension or business) is counted as marital property subject to equitable distribution, as well as income subject to an alimony or child support obligation.

McFadden v. McFadden, 563 A.2d 180 (Pa.Super.1989).

            McFadden was a post-divorce alimony modification proceeding.  In this case, the husband’s pension annuity benefit was in pay status, and he was receiving the entire pension benefit. Yet, the court found that the husband’s pension had not been identified as marital property at the time of equitable distribution. Therefore, the Superior Court did not reverse the trial court’s calculation of the husband’s income, which included the pension benefit. Most troubling, in dicta, the Superior Court held (per Popovich, J.): “[I]t is equally clear that income from a pension is to be considered when fashioning an alimony award, even if the pension was previously subjected to equitable distribution. See 23 Pa.S.A. § 501(b)(3), (10), (13); Pacella v. Pacella, 342 Pa.Super. 178, 190, 2492 A.2d 707, 711-712 (1985)(court did not err in consideration earlier equitable distribution property in fashioning alimony); Braderman, 488 A.2d at 620 (pension subject to equitable distribution also may be used to calculate alimony award).”

This is the third in a series of posts containing summaries of Pennsylvania case law on the issue of double dipping in divorce. “Double dipping” occurs when an income-producing asset (such as a pension or business) is counted as marital property subject to equitable distribution, as well as income subject to an alimony or child support obligation.

Miller v. Miller, 783 A.2d 832 (Pa. Super. 2001)

In Miller, the parties settled their division of property, and Wife subsequently sought a modification of child support based on the income that Husband derived from the sale of his share of marital assets. The Superior Court held that the proceeds from the sale of assets were not “income” within the statutory definition. The Superior Court affirmed the trial court’s refusal to modify child support when the payor received proceeds from the sale of marital assets after the divorce and division of property. The double dip in Miller was another reason for the Court’s decision.

Rohrer v. Rohrer, 715 A.2d 463, 465 (Pa. Super. 1998).

            Rohrer was the first published decision to prohibit double dipping in Pennsylvania. (Interestingly, the opinion was written by Judge Popovich, who had held in McFadden that double dipping was permitted.) In Rohrer, the husband was an owner of a business organized as a Subchapter “S” corporation. At an early stage of the proceedings, the pass-through earnings of the business were included in the husband’s income when calculating his support obligations. At equitable distribution, the husband asked the master to exclude retained earnings from the value of the business, in order to avoid double dipping. Husband’s request was granted by the master, but only to the extent that retained earnings from the date of the support order forward into the future were excluded. The retained earnings that accrued prior to the support order were counted as part of the value of the business.

            The trial court reversed the master’s decision and excluded all of the retained earnings. On appeal, the Superior Court reversed and adopted the master’s finding. The Superior Court held that “money included in an individual’s income for the purpose of calculating support payments may not also be labeled as a marital asset subject to equitable distribution.” Rohrer, at 465.

This is the second in a series of posts containing summaries of Pennsylvania case law on the issue of double dipping in divorce. “Double dipping” occurs when an income-producing asset (such as a pension or business) is counted as marital property subject to equitable distribution, as well as income subject to an alimony or child support obligation.

Cerny v. Cerny, 656 A.2d 507 (Pa.Super.1995).

            Prior to separation, the husband received a cash severance payment, which was counted as income in determining his support obligation. The severance payment was excluded (in a prior, unpublished Superior Court decision) from the marital estate to avoid double dipping. Subsequently, the IRS issued a tax refund to the husband, as the severance payment was not taxable income. The trial court held that the tax refund should be counted as marital property. On appeal, the Superior Court reversed, holding that the tax refund retained the same nonmarital nature as the income from which it was derived. The opinion does not reveal whether the tax was deducted from the payor’s income when determining his support obligation, but if so, then the result may have been inequitable.

The concept of a “double dip” is logical and intuitive. If an income-producing asset has been awarded to a party in equitable distribution, the same asset cannot be counted as a source of income from which alimony may be paid. For instance, a pension in pay status cannot be counted as income for alimony purposes if it was also a marital asset that has been divided in equitable distribution. This concept has been recognized and adopted by the Pennsylvania courts at the trial and appellate levels. Butler v. Butler, 541 Pa. 364, 663 A.2d 148, 156 (1995)(professional goodwill); Diament v. Diament, 816 A.2d 256, 277 (Pa.Super.2003)(advance of marital assets); Miller v. Miller, 783 A.2d 832 (Pa.Super. 2001)(proceeds from sale of marital property); Rohrer v. Rohrer, 715 A.2d 463 (Pa.Super. 1998)(retained earnings of a business); Kokolis v. Kokolis, 83 Pa.D. & C.4^th 214 (Ally. 2006)(pension in pay status), affirmed, 927 A.2d 663 (Pa.Super. 2007); cf. McFadden v. McFadden, 563 A.2d 180 (Pa.Super.1989)(pension in pay status).

This post is the first of a series describing Pennsylvania case law concerning the double dip.

Berry v. Berry, 898 A.2d 110 (Pa.Super.2006).

The husband in this case was terminated from his employment as a partner in an accounting firm just weeks after the commencement of a support claim within a divorce action. Upon his termination, the husband received a distribution of his partnership capital account plus a cash severance payment equal to seven months’ base salary. The wife argued at the trial court level that neither of these items should be included in the husband’s income when determining his child support obligation. (The husband had secured other employment paying a salary sufficient to justify a Melzer analysis.) The trial court held that the capital account distribution and cash severance were income for support purposes. The wife appealed, prompting the Superior Court to vacate and remand the case.

The Superior Court held that the partnership capital account was marital property which should not have been included in the husband’s income because doing so would constitute a double dip.  On the other hand, the Superior Court held that the cash severance payment was strictly income. In its decision, the Court distinguished between money earned prior to the marital separation (in this case, a partnership capital account) and money acquired after separation (in this case, a severance payment). Since the partnership capital account was acquired prior to separation, it fell within the statutory definition of marital property. The cash severance acquired after separation did not.  The Superior Court held that the capital account was marital property while the severance payment was income. In both of its findings, the Superior Court refused to double dip.

At the Pennsylvania Bar Association Family Law Section Winter Meeting 2009, which took place at the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh this weekend, a panel of judges, lawyers and CPAs discussed hot topics in family law and business valuation. One of the hot topics, presented by Pittsburgh valuation professional Richard F. Brabender, was double dipping. Specifically, this seminar discussed the theoretical/academic argument (which I have advocated in this blog) that a double dip exists where capitalized income which has been divided between the spouses as marital property is also counted as income for child support or alimony purposes.

Clearly, if there is a pension in pay status which is valued on the date of trial, and the pension annuity benefit is counted as income for calculating post-divorce alimony, the court has divided the same stream of income twice – a “double dip.” This same problem exists where business profits have been capitalized as part of the valuation process and also included in the business owner’s net income for child support and alimony purposes.

The twist that Dick Brabender brought to light in his presentation was the double dip that may occur during the separation, where the owner’s compensation substantially exceeds a market salary. For instance, if a business owner is drawing $500,000 per year from the business, but could hired a newly-minted MBA (because we all know how they can improve any business) to do the owner’s job for $70,000 a year, then the owner is receiving excessive compensation of $430,000 per year. Why shouldn’t the business owner’s spouse get 50% of the excess compensation during the separation period as an advance against his or her share of the marital property (assuming the business is entirely marital), subject to re-allocation at the time of trial? (The excess compensation would then be excluded from both spouses’ incomes for support purposes.) This is the likely result if there were a marital pension in pay status, which could be divided 50/50 during the pendency of litigation as an advance of marital property.

In order to accomplish this interim division of the business income stream, the court would have to conduct a hearing to determine that the owner’s compensation were excessive, something the court is unlikely to decide in motions court. Moreover, the excess compensation hearing would have to occur prior to the support or maintenance hearing so that there were no inconsistencies between the support order and the property advance. One of the panelists, eastern Pennsylvania lawyer Mark Ashton, suggested that the court would also have to look at whether the rents being paid by the business to the owner were consistent with market levels, whether the owner were working more than 40 hours a week, etc. Suddenly a simple hearing to determine a property advance has become a multi-day trial with multiple expert witnesses!

Another panelist, Jay Blechman, suggested an alternative: a lookback at the time of the final property division trial. In other words, if it were proven at the end of the case that the owner’s compensation during the pendency of litigation was above-market, then the court could re-designate the excessive income as marital property and award an incremental amount to the owner’s spouse. In Pennsylvania, a business owner’s spouse without children would receive 40% of the income stream as support or maintenance, but if the excess compensation were marital property, the spouse might 50%, 55% or more. So, Jay Blechman suggested that the business owner’s spouse could get 40% during the pendency of the case, and an additional 10%, 15% or more of the excessive compensation at the end of the case.

No case law supports this idea yet.

The Tennessee Court of Appeals issued a decision in May 2006 that addresses the lingering question of whether gains from the sale of marital property may be included in income for child support purposes: the old “double dip” dilemma. In Moore (2006), the partial owner of a cycle shop settled his divorce in 1991, retaining his interest in the business as part of his equitable distribution. Child support was set at the time of the divorce, and modified later based on an increase in the owner’s salary.

Years later, the business owner sold his interest in the cycle shop to his sister, who was the other owner. In exchange for his interest and a non-compete clause, the seller received 20% of the sales proceeds up front and a five year note in monthly installments with interest. When the former wife of the seller filed a petition for modification of child support, alleging an increase in the father’s income due to the sale of the business, the trial court determined that the sales proceeds should not be included in his income for support purposes.

On appeal, the Tennessee Court of Appeals noted that the statutory definition of income in that state includes “capital gains.” Yet, the father in this case relied upon a Tennessee precedent that excludes “isolated capital gains” from income. Moreover, Father cited a Tennessee law which provides that “assets distributed as marital property will not be considered as income for child support or alimony purposes, except to the extent that asset will create additional income after the division.”

The Tennessee Court of Appeals remanded to determine what portion of the proceeds received by the husband from the sale of his business interest could be considered “additional income” under Tennessee law. At first blush, it appeared that the Tennessee court blurred the distinction between the net income or profits generated by a business (which are included in the value to be divided in an equitable distribution proceeding) and passive income such as interest, dividends and capital gains on marketable securities (which are truly “created” after the division of property).

Yet, the Moore opinion set forth a methodology which intentionally or unintentionally measures the portion of the sales proceeds that were not divided in equitable distribution. The appellate court held that the difference between the actual sales proceeds and the value used in equitable distribution should be divided pro rata over the five year payback period as “additional income.” In essence, the Tennessee court pro-rated the margin of error between the valuation and the actual sale price. That seems to be an appropriate way of capturing the difference between theory and practice.