- 50 -
4 See also Corn Belt Hatcheries of Arkansas, Inc. v.
Commissioner, 52 T.C. 636 (1969).
[Gottesman & Co. v. Commissioner, 77 T.C. at 1157-1158.]
Our opinion in Corn Belt Hatcheries of Arkansas, Inc. v.
Commissioner, 52 T.C. 636 (1969) (cited in Gottesman & Co. at
1158 n.4), further supports interpreting any ambiguity in the
1992 proposed regulations in petitioners’ favor; it also
addresses and downplays the role of the Commissioner’s
subsequently asserted “clarification” in that interpretation. In
Corn Belt Hatcheries of Arkansas, Inc., the taxpayer (a common
parent corporation) arguably would have been permitted to file a
separate return under the language of a revenue ruling. However,
the taxpayer clearly would not have been able to do so under a
subsequently published “clarification” of that language in
another revenue ruling. In holding for the taxpayer we wrote:
Petitioner interprets * * * [the first revenue
ruling] to permit what its words seem to say * * *. We
consider this interpretation a plausible one and we are
not disposed to reject it by importing into the ruling
the subsidiary qualification asserted by respondent.
Taxpayers are already burdened with an incredibly long
and complicated tax law. We see no reason to add to
this burden by requiring them anticipatorily to
interpret ambiguities in respondent’s rulings to
conform to his subsequent clarifications, particularly
in an area, such as consolidated returns, where
Congress has placed such reliance on respondent’s
expertise. * * * [Corn Belt Hatcheries of Arkansas,
Inc. v. Commissioner, supra at 639-640.]19
19 Sec. 1.469-1T(g)(3)(iii), Temporary Income Tax Regs., 53
Fed. Reg. 5686, 5707-5708 (Feb. 25, 1988), further supports the
interpretation that a shareholder did not participate in C
(continued...)
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