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Drive property while title was parked with WLC does not gainsay
our conclusion. In substance, petitioner never disposed of the
Lawrence Drive property and remained its owner during the 3-month
construction period because the transfer of title to WLC never
divested petitioner of beneficial ownership.
Having set forth our analysis and conclusion, we now address
the authorities cited by petitioners6 as favoring their position
or as being distinguishable.
Authority in the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
The only case in the Seventh Circuit--the circuit to which
any appeal would lie in the case at hand--that the parties have
6 Petitioners contend that their advisers relied on two
private letter rulings in structuring the subject transactions:
Priv. Ltr. Rul. 78-23-035 (Mar. 9, 1978), which they characterize
as “nearly identical to the facts in our case”, and Priv. Ltr.
Rul. 91-49-018 (Sept. 4, 1991), which they cite as “virtually
directly on point (even goes farther than our case) on how a
transaction can be structured”. Petitioners’ contentions are
unavailing; not only does sec. 6110(j)(3) provide that private
letter rulings cannot be cited as precedent, but, unlike the case
at hand, the other party to the transaction in both private
letter rulings had the risks of ownership during the relevant
time period. Similarly, Rev. Rul. 75-291, 1975-2 C.B. 333, and
Rev. Rul. 77-297, 1977-2 C.B. 304, cited in Priv. Ltr. Rul. 78-
23-035, don’t help petitioners; not only does this Court regard
published rulings as having no precedential value, see Estate of
Lang v. Commissioner, 613 F.2d 770, 776 (9th Cir. 1980), affg. on
this issue 64 T.C. 404, 406-407 (1975); Intel Corp. & Consol.
Subs. v. Commissioner, 102 T.C. 616, 621 (1993); Stark v.
Commissioner,86 T.C. 243, 250-251 (1986), but the facts of both
rulings, like Priv. Ltr. Rul. 91-94-018 (Sept. 4, 1991), are
distinguishable from the case at hand in the same dispositive
respect.
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