- 9 - Petitioner's line of reasoning has been rejected in an analogous situation by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, the Court of Appeals to which this case would normally be appealable. In Clarence LaBelle Post No. 217, VFW v. United States, 580 F.2d 270, 271 (8th Cir. 1978), the taxpayer, a section 501(c)(4) organization, argued that income from an unrelated trade or business may be taxed under section 511(a) only if the trade or business competes with a taxpaying entity. Since the taxpayer's bingo operation did not compete with taxpaying entities, the taxpayer argued that it was not subject to tax. Id. After examining the legislative history of section 513 and the regulations thereunder, the Court of Appeals held that the tax on unrelated business income is not limited to income earned by a trade or business whose operations compete with taxpaying entities. Id. at 274; accord Louisiana Credit Union League v. United States, 693 F.2d 525, 541-542 (5th Cir. 1982) ("The regulations under section 513 bolster our conclusion that competition is not essential to the taxability of unrelated business income."). See also Smith-Dodd Businessman's Association, Inc. v. Commissioner, 65 T.C. 620, 624 (1975), where we stated that "unfair competition plays a relatively insignificant role in the application of the amended unrelated business tax". Although section 513(f) legislatively overrides the decision in Clarence LaBelle Post No. 217, VFW v. United States, supra, by creating a special exemption for bingo games from the definitionPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
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