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expenses incurred by a nursing home taxpayer in the same taxable
year in which the required nursing home licenses were later
issued and operations were later commenced held to be deductible
business expenses under section 162(a) in the year incurred);9
see also Carter-Colton Cigar Co. v. Commissioner, 9 T.C. 219, 221
(1947) (vacant lot intended as the site for a warehouse and store
building to be used in the taxpayer’s tobacco business, the
construction of which was abandoned due to adverse economic
circumstances, held to constitute an asset “used in the trade or
business of [the taxpayer]” thereby giving rise to ordinary
rather than capital loss on the sale of the lot).
The foregoing cases all involve expenses (or the acquisition
and sale of property) preparatory and related to a specific
business (or business use) that is either certain or anticipated
to commence in the near future. In contrast, the evidence in
this case indicates that petitioner’s 1997 expenses were incurred
before any firm expectation of a specific business use for
petitioner’s investment properties. That is a factual
distinction that one might reasonably expect an experienced tax
professional to make, but not a physics professor, even one with
a Ph.D.10 Therefore, we find the caselaw permitting a business
9 See Goodwin v. Commissioner, 75 T.C. 424, 433 n.8 (1980),
affd. without published opinion 691 F.2d 490 (3d Cir. 1982),
wherein we question the District Court’s analysis.
10 There is no evidence that petitioner has any training or
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