(a) Sections 551(e) and 551(f) are designed to prevent double taxation with respect to the undistributed foreign personal holding company income.
(b) The application of sections 551(e) and 551(f) may be illustrated by the following examples:
Example 1. The M Corporation is a foreign personal holding company. Seventy-five percent in value of its capital stock is owned by A, a citizen of the United States, and the remainder, or 25 percent, of its stock is owned by B, a nonresident alien individual. For the calendar year 1954 the M Corporation has an undistributed foreign personal holding company income of $100,000. A is required to include $75,000 of such income in gross income as a dividend in his return for the calendar year 1954. The $100,000 is treated as paid-in surplus or as a contribution to the capital of the M Corporation and its accumulated earnings and profits as of the close of the calendar year 1954 are correspondingly reduced. If after treating such $100,000 as paid-in surplus or as a contribution to capital, the M Corporation has no accumulatedearnings and profits at the close of 1954, and if for the calendar year 1955, the M Corporation had no earnings and profits, but distributed $40,000, the amount so distributed would be a nontaxable distribution and would not be included in the gross income of either A or B for the calendar year 1955. If, however, after treating the $100,000 as paid-in surplus or as a contribution to capital, the M Corporation had accumulated earnings and profits of $100,000 at the close of 1954, the facts otherwise being the same, the distributions in 1955 would be taxable to A as a dividend, and the taxability of such distributions to B would depend upon the application of section 861(a)(2), relating to the treatment of dividends from a foreign corporation as income from sources within or without the United States.
Example 2. In example 1 assume the basis of A's stock to be $300,000. If A includes in gross income in his return for the calendar year 1954, $75,000 as a dividend from the M Corporation, the basis of his stock would be $375,000. After the nontaxable distribution of $30,000 to A by the M Corporation in 1955 (75 percent of the $40,000 distribution) the basis of A's stock, assuming no other changes, would be $345,000. If A failed to include the $75,000 as a dividend in gross income in his return for 1954 and his failure was not discovered until after the 6-year period of limitations had expired, the application of the rule would not increase the basis of A's stock. The subsequent nontaxable distribution of $30,000 to A in 1955 would reduce his basis of $300,000 to $270,000, thus tending to compensate for his failure to include the amount of $75,000 as a dividend in his gross income for 1954. If the undistributed foreign personal holding company income of the M Corporation is readjusted within the statutory period of limitations, thus increasing or decreasing the amount A would have to include in his gross income, proper adjustment is required to be made to the basis of A's stock on account of such readjustment.