Deductions and Exemptions

Deductions and Exemptions.—The authorization contained in the Sixteenth Amendment to tax income ''from whatever source derived'' does not preclude Congress from granting exemptions.46 Thus, the fact that ''under the Revenue Acts of 1913, 1916, 1917, and 1918, stock fire insurance companies were taxed . . . upon gains realized from the sale . . . of property accruing subsequent to March 1, 1913,'' but were not so taxed by the Revenue Acts of 1921, 1924, and 1926, did not prevent Congress, under the terms of the Revenue Act of 1928, from taxing all the gain attributable to increase in value after March 1, 1913, which such a company realized from a sale of property in 1928. The constitutional power of Congress to tax a gain being well established, Congress was declared competent to choose ''the moment of its realization and the amount realized''; and ''its failure to impose a tax upon the increase in value in the earlier years . . . [could not] preclude it from taxing the gain in the year when realized …''47 Congress is equally well equipped with the ''power to condition, limit, or deny deductions from gross incomes in order to arrive at the net that it chooses to tax.''48 Accordingly, even though the rental value of a building used by its owner does not constitute income within the meaning of the Amendment,49 Congress was competent to provide that an insurance company shall not be entitled to deductions for depreciation, maintenance, and property taxes on real estate owned and occupied by it unless it includes in its computation of gross income the rental value of the space thus used.50

46 Brushaber v. Union Pac. R.R., 240 U.S. 1 (1916).

47 MacLaughlin v. Alliance Ins. Co., 286 U.S. 244, 250 (1932).

48 Helvering v. Independent Life Ins. Co., 292 U.S. 371, 381 (1934); Helvering v. Winmill, 305 U.S. 79, 84 (1938).

49 A tax on the rental value of property so occupied is a direct tax on the land and must be apportioned. Helvering v. Independent L. Ins. Co., 292 U.S. 371, 378- 79 (1934).

50 292 U.S. at 381. Expenditures incurred in the prosecution of work under a contract for the purpose of earning profits are not capital investments, the cost of which, if converted, must first be restored from the proceeds before there is a capital gain taxable as income. Accordingly, a dredging contractor, recovering a judgment for breach of warranty of the character of the material to be dredged, must include the amount thereof in the gross income of the year in which it was received, rather than of the years during which the contract was performed, even though it merely represents a return of expenditures made in performing the contract and resulting in a loss. The gain or profit subject to tax under the Sixteenth Amendment is the excess of receipts over allowable deductions during the accounting period, without regard to whether or not such excess represents a profit ascertained on the basis of particular transactions of the taxpayer when they are brought to a conclusion. Burnet v. Sanford & Brooks Co., 282 U.S. 359 (1931).

The grant on denial of deductions is not based on the taxpayers' engagement in constitutionally protected activities, and, accordingly, no deduction is granted for sums expended in combating legislation, enactment of which would destroy taxpayer's business. Cammarano v. United States, 358 U.S. 498 (1959).

Likewise, when tank truck owners, either intentionally for business reasons or unintentionally, violate state maximum weight laws, and incur fines, the latter are not deductible, for fines are penalties rather than tolls for the use of highways, and Congress is not to be viewed as having intended to encourage enterprises to violate state policy. Tank Truck Rentals v. Commissioner, 356 U.S. 30 (1958); Hoover Express Co. v. United States, 356 U.S. 38 (1958).

Also, a taxpayer who erected a $3,000,000 office building on land, the unimproved worth of which was $660,000, and who subsequently purchased the lease on the latter for $2,100,000 is entitled to compute depreciation over the remaining useful life of the building on that portion of $1,440,000, representing the difference between the price and the unimproved value, as may be allocated to the building; but he cannot deduct the $1,440,000 as a business expense incurred in eliminating the cost of allegedly excessive rentals under the lease, nor can he treat that sum as a prepayment of rent to be amortized over the 21-year period that the lease was to run.51

51 Millinery Corp. v. Commissioner, 350 U.S. 456 (1956).

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Last modified: June 9, 2014