Cite as: 507 U. S. 546 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
Colorado National Bankshares, 60 TCM, at 789,
¶ 90,495 P-H Memo TC, at 2,396.
The court specifically found that the deposit accounts could be identified; that they had limited lives that could be estimated with reasonable accuracy; and that they could be valued with a fair degree of accuracy. They were also not self-regenerating. "It is these characteristics which separate them from general goodwill and permits separate valuation." Ibid. See also IT&S of Iowa, Inc. v. Commissioner, 97 T. C. 496, 509 (1991); Northern Natural Gas Co. v. O'Malley, 277 F. 2d 128, 139 (CA8 1960) (concurring opinion).
The Eighth Circuit has considered a factual situation nearly identical to the case now before us. In Donrey, Inc. v. United States, 809 F. 2d 534 (1987), the taxpayer sought to depreciate the subscription list of a newspaper it had purchased as a going concern. The taxpayer asserted that the subscription list was not simply a list of customers but "a machine to generate advertising revenue." Id., at 536. There was expert testimony that the value of the subscription list was "the present value of the difference in advertising revenues generated by the subscription list as compared to the revenues of an equivalent paper without a subscription list." Ibid. A jury found that the list had a limited useful life, the duration of which could be ascertained with reasonable accuracy; that the useful life was 23 years; and that it had an ascertainable value of $559,406 separate and distinct from goodwill. The District Court denied a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict after concluding that, although reasonable minds could have differed as to the correct result, there was evidence from which the jury could properly find for the taxpayer. The Court of Appeals implicitly rejected the Government's argument that the subscription list was necessarily inseparable from the value of goodwill when it deferred to the jury's finding that the subscription list was depreciable because it had a determinable useful life and an ascertainable value.
563
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