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412 that we respectfully continue to believe that Cotnam was
wrongly decided and that we would “adhere to our holding * * *
[contrary to Cotnam] that contingent fee agreements * * * come
within the ambit of the assignment of income doctrine and do not
serve * * * to exclude the fee from the assignor’s gross income.”
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the court to
which an appeal of this case lies, agrees with the holding in
Cotnam that excludes from a taxpayer’s gross income the portion
of a damage award paid to the taxpayer’s attorney under a
contingent fee arrangement. In Estate of Clarks ex rel. Brisco-
Whitter v. United States, supra at 856, the Court of Appeals for
the Sixth Circuit interpreted applicable State (Michigan) law to
operate more or less the same way as the applicable State
(Alabama) law in Cotnam. The court held that a portion of the
contingent fee paid to the estate’s attorneys was not includable
in the estate’s income. The court rejected the proposition that
the assignment of income doctrine enunciated in Lucas v. Earl,
281 U.S. 111 (1930), is applicable to such contingent fee
agreements.
Under our so-called Golsen doctrine, see Golsen v.
Commissioner, 54 T.C. 742, 756-757 (1970), affd. 445 F.2d 985
(10th Cir. 1971), we follow the holding of a Court of Appeals to
which a case is appealable where that holding is squarely on
point. For the reasons stated by the Court of Appeals for the
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