Cite as: 506 U. S. 546 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
$19,000 the second year, and so on for 20 years. At the end of the 20th year, the item would be fully depreciated, and the taxpayer's basis in the item would then remain at $1,000, the salvage value, for as many more years as he continued to own it. Thus, over the first 20 years, the capital item would shelter $210,000, or 10 times its cost, from the minimum tax; beginning in the 21st year, it would shelter $1,000 per year for as long as it remained in the taxpayer's hands. At a minimum tax rate of 15%, a taxpayer would realize a tax benefit, from his $21,000 investment, of $31,500 over the first 20 years from § 57(a)(8) alone, without regard to the additional tax benefit from ordinary depreciation of the item. It is hard to believe that Congress would enact a minimum tax to limit the benefit that taxpayers could realize from "items of tax preference," only to define one of those items in a way that would create an even greater proportional tax benefit from investing in tangible items, and to do so in an oblique fashion that, as far as we know, has no precedent in the history of the federal income tax.
V
The Hills contend that two Treasury Department regulations we have not yet discussed foreclose our conclusion. They point first to one of the cost depletion regulations under § 612, which, but for its title and one adjective, would independently reinforce our conclusion:
"The basis for cost depletion of mineral or timber property does not include:
beginning of a taxable year, by the end of the year the taxpayer's basis in it would be reduced by the first year's depreciation. Thus, in our example, the $21,000 capital item would add $20,000 to the taxpayer's basis in the mineral deposit, for purposes of § 57(a)(8), the first year it was placed in service.
561
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