River City Ranches #4 - Page 137



                                       - 75 -                                         
          capitalized.  Organizational costs, if elected, are amortizable,            
          but syndication costs are not amortizable.  See secs. 263, 709.             
          Petitioners have the burden of proving what portion of the fee is           
          allocable to nondeductible capital portions and to deductible               
          expense portions, and such allocation must reasonably comport               
          with the value of the services performed.  See Durkin v.                    
          Commissioner, supra at 1389.  Any fee for services to be rendered           
          in the future is not deductible in the year of expenditure.  See            
          id.   Whether payments to a partner represent a reasonable                  
          compensation for services is a question of fact to be determined            
          on the basis of the particular circumstances of each case.  See             
          id.                                                                         
               In the instant cases, the evidence presented on the payments           
          these partnerships made to Mr. Hoyt during the years in issue is            
          most unsatisfactory.  The record includes only a copy of RCR #4's           
          partnership agreement.  It provides that the managing general               
          partner, Mr. Hoyt, is to receive a fee equal to 15 percent of               
          that partnership's profits upon the sale and distribution of all            
          partnership assets.  Copies of the partnership agreements of the            
          other partnership are not in the record.                                    
               Mr. Hoyt testified that he received payments from each                 
          partnership, and that he reported these payments as income on his           
          individual Federal returns.  He further stated that these                   
          payments were of two types.  According to him, the first type of            
          payment he received was equal to 1 percent of a partnership's               
          reported gross farm receipts.  The second type of payment he                




Page:  Previous  65  66  67  68  69  70  71  72  73  74  75  76  77  78  79  80  81  82  83  84  Next

Last modified: May 25, 2011