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Carpenter v. Commissioner

Open-knowledge reference entry

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ5045743 ↗
Source-derived summary

Carpenter v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1966-228 (1966) was a case decided by the United States Tax Court. Carpenter v. Commissioner addressed the issue of whether a husband and wife could deduct the aggregate fair market value of the wife’s engagement ring from their income tax return, as a casualty loss under §165(a) and (c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, after the husband inadvertently dropped the ring in their garbage disposal.

Facts

The petitioners were Nancy Carpenter and William Carpenter. During 1962, Nancy owned a diamond engagement ring worth $1,010. One day, in 1962, Nancy placed the ring in a water-glass of ammonia for purposes of cleaning the ring. Nancy then left the glass, with the ring inside, next to her kitchen sink.

Later that day, William Carpenter was washing dishes, and William inadvertently “picked up the glass and emptied its contents down the” sink drain.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Carpenter v. Commissioner” as open-knowledge reference entry. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Carpenter, Commissioner and Open-knowledge.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1966, 1954, 1962—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Carpenter, Commissioner and Open-knowledge providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Carpenter v. Commissioner”, the useful work is to connect “open-knowledge reference entry” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5045743. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1966, 1954 and 1962.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Carpenter v. Commissioner”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Carpenter v. Commissioner primary sources, Carpenter v. Commissioner archive and Carpenter research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Carpenter v. Commissioner”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Carpenter v. Commissioner” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.