- 27 - from, the franchisor's rights and trademarks acquired by Duskin. Respondent maintains that any gain attributable to the sale of franchises or the trademarks produces U.S. source income, as section 865 generally sources income in the residence of the seller. See sec. 865(a),(d)(1). While there are no cases on point under section 865, case law interpreting other provisions of the Code supports respondent's position. In Canterbury v. Commissioner, 99 T.C. 223 (1992), we considered whether the excess of a franchisee's purchase price of an existing McDonald's franchise over the value of the franchise's tangible assets was allocable to the franchise or to goodwill for purposes of amortization pursuant to section 1253(d)(2)(A). We recognized that McDonald's franchises encompass attributes that have traditionally been viewed as goodwill. The issue, therefore, was whether these attributes were embodied in the McDonald's franchise, trademarks, and trade name, which would make their cost amortizable pursuant to section 1253(d)(2)(A), or whether the franchisee acquired intangible assets, such as goodwill, which were not encompassed by, or otherwise attributable to, the franchise and which were nonamortizable. We found that the expectancy of continued patronage which McDonald's enjoys "is created by and flows from the implementation of the McDonald's system and association with thePage: Previous 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011