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bought four mobile homes as additional rooms for his motel was
entitled to an investment tax credit. Over the objections of the
Commissioner in that case, we did not separately test each mobile
home’s eligibility for the credit. It was enough that each
trailer did not “represent a separate trade or business” and that
the stipulated facts showed that the taxpayer was operating only
a single business.4 See also Koerner v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo.
1983-588 n.6 (same).
Shirley was likewise managing his motor home rental
enterprise as a single business; he used MH #22 as just one more
asset in that business. We follow Van Susteren and Koerner and
will not look to the 1997 use of MH #22 alone; instead, we look
to the use of the fleet of motor homes of which it was a part.
Analyzing whether applicable regulations exist begins with
the history of section 50. That section was added to the Code by
the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, Pub. L. 101-508
(OBRA 1990), sec. 11813(a), 104 Stat. 1388, 1388-536 through
1388-550.5 OBRA 1990 essentially reenacted old section 48(a)(3)
4 And because more than half of the total units at his motel
(i.e., those in his motel building, plus the mobile homes) were
used predominantly by transients, he qualified for an exception
to the general exclusion of lodging investments from the credit.
5 It was enacted as part of an extensive effort by Congress
to simplify the Code by amending and deleting numerous provisions
that had become obsolete. The legislative history stresses that
there was no attempt to simplify by making substantive changes.
H. Rept. 101-894, at 36 (1990); H. Conf. Rept. 101-964, at 1142
(1990).
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