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regarded the problem as one that could be solved by arriving at
an approved definition, which, incidentally, early on included
income derived from labor, including salaries, wages, or
compensation,2 the current view, as expressed on behalf of the
Supreme Court by Justice Holmes in United States v. Kirby Lumber
Co., 284 U.S. 1, 3 (1931), is: “We see nothing to be gained by
the discussion of judicial definitions. The defendant in error
[the taxpayer] has realized within the year an accession to
income, if we take words in their plain popular meaning”. See
also Reading v. Commissioner, 70 T.C. 730, 733 (1978), affd. per
curiam 614 F.2d 159 (8th Cir. 1980).
What petitioners and others who make the misguided arguments
that the Court has waded through in this case have failed or
refused to recognize, and must realize and understand, is that
the courts no longer pay any attention to the metaphysical logic
chopping and nit-picking of dicta from old cases about what is
“income”. The correct view, which all Federal courts currently
follow and apply, was made clear by Chief Justice Warren in the
more recent opinions of the Supreme Court in Commissioner v.
Glenshaw Glass Co., 348 U.S. 426 (1955), and General Am.
Investors Co. v. Commissioner, 348 U.S. 434 (1955), that the
2 The classic definition was worked out in a series of cases
commencing with Stratton's Independence, Ltd. v. Howbert, 231
U.S. 399, 415 (1913), through Doyle v. Mitchell Bros. Co., 247
U.S. 179, 185 (1918), and culminating in Eisner v. Macomber, 252
U.S. 189, 207 (1920).
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