How has the family attribution rule been interpreted under the 1954 Code of Civil Procedure?

The 1954 Code also adopted a number of constructive ownership rules that provided for the attribution of stock owned by one person or legal entity to another. These provisions overruled the prior case law which unrealistically had not viewed the family as a unit unless other family members were "dummy stockholders." Lukens v. Commissioner, 246 F.2d 403, 407-408 (3d Cir. 1957). By providing a "reasonable rule of thumb,"²⁰ these rules reduced the difficulties necessarily involved in determining in each case the extent of actual control in a family corporation, in which informal influence over relatives, often impossible of proof, was more important than formal control through voting rights based on actual stock ownership. Like 302(b) (2) and 302(b) (3), these rules represented an attempt to make the law more predictable, and thereby to serve as aids to the tax or estate planner.

Section 318(a), the family attribution rule applicable here, provides in relevant part:

[385 F.2d 526]