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agreement is not yet due, a taxpayer may elect to defer that
income further by entering into a superseding binding contract or
agreement. See Veit v. Commissioner, 8 T.C. 809 (1947); Kimbell
v. Commissioner, 41 B.T.A. 940 (1940).
In Oliver v. United States, 193 F. Supp. 930, 933 (E.D. Ark.
1961), the U.S. District Court summarized the foregoing principles
of the constructive-receipt doctrine as follows:
Where income, although not actually received, is unqual-
ifiedly and without substantial limitation available to
the taxpayer in a given year, and his failure actually
to receive it is due to nothing other than his own
volition, then such income is considered as having been
constructively received during that year, and it must be
so reported and the tax paid thereon. * * * But, if
during the tax year in question the taxpayer has no
right to receive income, or if his right to receive it
is subject to substantial qualifications or restric-
tions, then he will not be deemed to have received such
income constructively during that year. * * *
When the item of income in question consists of the
proceeds of a sale by the taxpayer of merchandise or
other property * * * and where the sale is completed in
a given year and the taxpayer at the time acquires an
unconditioned vested right to receive the proceeds of
the sale, and the buyer is ready, willing, and able to
make payment, the taxpayer cannot avoid treating the
proceeds as income for that year by voluntarily declin-
ing to accept payment during that year, or by requesting
the purchaser not to pay him until a later year, or even
by voluntarily putting himself under some legal disabil-
ity or restriction with respect to payment. In such
circumstances, he will be deemed in constructive receipt
of the income notwithstanding his refusal to accept
payment or his self-imposed restraints on payment. * * *
On the other hand, it must be recognized that a
taxpayer has a perfect legal right to stipulate that he
is not to be paid until some subsequent year, or that
the payments are to be spread out over a number of
years. Where such a stipulation is entered into between
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