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employees.14 Reading the specificity of the meal provisions in
the labor agreements, we find that the unions painstakingly went
to great lengths in those agreements to assure themselves that
casino operators such as petitioners would furnish their union
employees with healthful meals during their workday. Meals
provided in such a setting are not furnished to allow an employee
to perform his or her job properly.
We also find relevant that the labor agreements provide
specifically that all union employees will receive meals upon
their completion of a minimum workday. We are unable to
comprehend why a short shift employee covered by the Teamsters'
agreement, who is allowed to receive a meal after working
3 hours, must receive that meal in order to perform his or her
job properly. The same is true with respect to an employee who
is covered by the operating engineers' agreement and who is
summoned to work for 4 hours in an emergency, as well as the
employee covered by the same agreement who works more than
2 hours of overtime. In both cases, the employee earns the right
to a meal. Do these employees really need those meals in order
to perform their jobs properly? We think not. We conclude that
the meals are furnished for a compensatory business reason and,
absent a substantial noncompensatory business reason, are not
excludable from income under section 119.
14 In this regard, we find unpersuasive the unsupported
testimony of Mr. Thompson, that petitioners' provision of
employee meals resulted in increased profits.
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