Osteopathic Medical Oncology and Hematology, P.C. - Page 18




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          of commerce held for sale."  Simply put, petitioner is not                  
          peddling products.                                                          
               Respondent looks to the value of the chemotherapy drugs and            
          asserts that petitioner's business is part service, part sale.              
          We disagree.  The mere fact that the chemotherapy drugs are                 
          expensive is insufficient to transmute the transaction from the             
          sale of a service to the sale of merchandise and a service.  The            
          common denominator that the items be held for sale is lacking on            
          these facts.  Petitioner's chemotherapy treatment business is a             
          pure service business and not, as respondent asserts, a mixed               
          service and merchandising business.  See, e.g., Hewlett-Packard             
          Co. v. United States, 71 F.3d 398 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (taxpayer's              
          computer maintenance business was a service business, not mixed             
          service and merchandise business, despite installation of parts);           
          Honeywell, Inc. v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1992-453 (taxpayer's            
          computer maintenance business was a service business, not mixed             
          service and merchandise business, despite installation of parts),           
          affd. without published opinion 27 F.3d 571 (8th Cir. 1994).                
               We find no cases on this issue analogous, much less                    
          controlling.  The reported authorities, including those cases               
          where the court found that the merchandise at issue there was               
          sold either with or without a service, are all materially                   
          distinguishable from the facts herein given the uniqueness of the           
          service provided.  Respondent relies on the seminal case of                 





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