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exception to section 471, they would have done so expressly.
They did not. In short, petitioners have offered no plausible
explanation, and we can find none ourselves, that would account
for the fact that the language of section 458 does not reflect
the purposes that they ascribe to Congress.
Moreover, even if we assumed that Congress did intend costs
incurred through overstocking to be deductible, we would not be
persuaded that the Regulation is inconsistent with that intent.
The Regulation allows a taxpayer to forgo correlative cost
adjustments with respect to excess copies to the extent that the
taxpayer actually bears the costs. Petitioners would have us
believe that Congress intended the same promotional costs to be
deducted twice: once by the publisher who actually bore them and
once by the distributor like Curtis who is fully reimbursed.
This treatment obviously has the potential to become an abusive
tax shelter: one can imagine a lengthening of the distribution
chain through the interposition between publisher and retail
merchant of additional, unnecessary wholesalers that enjoy the
benefit of a deduction without committing any resources or
bearing risk. In the absence of any direct evidence, we refuse
to believe that Congress would have been so indiscriminate and
foolhardy in the bestowal of tax benefits.
Finally, we find some evidence in the legislative history
that contradicts the view that Congress intended asymmetrical
treatment of revenues and costs. Most importantly, as respondent
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