William O. Douglas

“ Whether as a matter of policy such nice distinctions should be perpetuated in a tax law by selecting one type of trust but not the other for special treatment is not for us. We have only the responsibility of carrying out the Congressional mandate. ”

“ And he argues that it would not be sensible to impute to Congress a purpose to impose the tax when the grantor has an executory power to revest title in himself but to withhold the tax when the grantor, by provisions in the trust deed, has already exercised that power.
Our difficulty lies not in an inability to see the similarity of those situations but in being able to say that Congress treated them the same under § 166. A power to revest or revoke may in economic fact be the equivalent of a reversion. ”

“ By § 166 the income from a trust is taxable to the grantor where 'at any time the power to revest in the grantor title to any part of the corpus of the trust is vested' in him or in any person 'not having a substantial adverse interest in the disposition of such part of the corpus or the income therefrom.' [4] Petitioner has not undertaken to establish that under New York law, which governs this trust, respondent had the power to revoke it prior to the end of the term. ”