- 118 - to a present value. That approach does not serve to assist the Court in measuring whether the parties were at arm’s length and/or whether the value they used was a “fair market value”. Petitioners’ expert’s approach to valuation begs the question and is fatally flawed. We are not constrained to follow the opinion of any expert when the opinion is contrary to our own judgment. We may adopt or reject expert testimony, whichever in our judgment is most appropriate. Helvering v. National Grocery Co., 304 U.S. 282, 295 (1938); Silverman v. Commissioner, 538 F.2d 927, 933 (2d Cir. 1976), affg. T.C. Memo. 1974-285. We are not limited to choosing the opinion of one expert over another but may extract relevant findings from each in reaching our own conclusions. Chiu v. Commissioner, 84 T.C. 722, 734 (1985). Although respondent’s experts’ approaches were more reasonable in terms of the rates used, we do not agree that the value they have determined can be isolated as being attributable to the trademark. In reaching that conclusion, we have, to some extent, relied on petitioners’ experts, who opined that the DHL network has value, over and above the stated equity, that should be attributable to intangibles other than the trademark. In particular, we find persuasive the concept that the DHL network enjoyed an intangible benefit from its existing infrastructure and operating know-how that created a “barrier to entry” of others into the same marketplace. That principle was borne outPage: Previous 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 Next
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