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scholarship and promise as researchers, who do part-
time research as a portion of their training under the
direct supervision of regular faculty members.
Although a condition precedent to being appointed as a
research assistant or associate is that one be a graduate
student, the tuition paid is obviously for the purpose of
registering as a student in the graduate program. Tuition is, by
definition, the price of or payment for instruction. Webster's
Third New International Dictionary, 2461 (1971).
Section 162 allows as a deduction all the ordinary and
necessary expenses, including education expenses, paid or
incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or
business. See sec. 1.162-5, Income Tax Regs. Whether a taxpayer
is carrying on a trade or business is a question of fact.
To be engaged in a trade or business, the taxpayer must be
involved in the activity with continuity and regularity, and the
taxpayer's primary purpose for engaging in the activity must be
for income or profit. Commissioner v. Groetzinger, 480 U.S. 23,
35 (1987).
Petitioner matriculated in the graduate school of the
University, first in the fall of 1985, as a candidate for a
Master of Science in physics and then, in the spring of 1988, as
a candidate for a Ph.D. in physics. It appears from the record
that petitioner was a full-time student from the fall of 1985
through the summer of 1995, when he left the University.
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