Case ID: bta_2/html/0134-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Morris:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Appeal of OLIVER FINNIE CO.
    Docket No. 757.
    Submitted April 27, 1925.
    Decided June 23, 1925.
    1. Certain contributions made by the taxpayer are not deductible as ordinary and necessary business expenses.
    2. On the evidence presented, the taxpayer is not entitled to additional depreciation over that allowed by the Commissioner.
    
      Hcurry M. Jay, G. P. A., for the taxpayer.
    
      Robert A. Littleton, Esq., for the Commissioner.
    Before Marquette and MoRRis.
    This appeal is from a determination of a deficiency in income and profits taxes for the years 1918 and 1920 of $4,304.51 and $3,941.35, respectively, reduced by an overassessment of $142.78 for 1919. From the pleadings and depositions the Board makes the following
    FINDINGS OF FACT.
    The taxpayer is a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Tennessee, with its principal office and place of business in Memphis. Its business is that oí manufacturers of candy, grocers’ sundries, roasters and blenders of coffee, and wholesale grocers. The building owned and occupied by the taxpayer was erected in 1904 of brick, with heavy wood columns and beams with a small portion of steel, at a cost of $186,162.40. It is located on the Illinois Central Railroad and the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad. A number of freight and passenger trains pass by there daily.
    The following deductions were taken by the taxpayer as ordinary and necessary expenses and disallowed by the Commissioner:
    1918
    Brotherhood of Railway Engineers-$35. 00
    Railway Men’s Magazine_ 10. 00
    Switchmen’s Union_ 10. 00
    Yardmasters’ convention- 5. 00
    19th Century Club — Girl’s Welfare- 50. 00
    Plymouth Community House- 10. 00
    Harm Development Bureau_ 100. 00'
    Park Aviation Field — Millington_ 200. 00
    War Department Vice Control_ 15. 00
    Total_ 435.00
    1919
    Telegraph Messengers- $5. 50
    Plymouth Community House_ 5. 00
    Police Relief_ 5. 00
    Total_ 15. 50
    1920
    Western Union Messengers’ Christmas Dinner- $5. 00
    Postal Messengers’ Christmas Dinner_ 5. 00
    Railway Trainmen’s Benefit- 2. 00
    Total_ 12. 00
    The Commissioner allowed a depreciation rate of 2y% per cent based on the book value of “building assets” at the beginning of 1918 of $186,162.40, with subsequent additions. These assets, as shown on the books at 1918, were as follows:
    Building_$152, 376.10
    Automatic sprinklers- 19, 653. 30
    Piping, fittings, and heating_ 4, 940. SO
    
    Electric lighting_ 3, 059.94
    Plumbing_ 1,955. 56
    Elevators and gates_ 4,177. 20
    Total_ 186,162.40
    The taxpayer took a depreciation rate of 10 per cent on grocery shipping room, office, vault and engine room equipment, including desks, tables, chairs, dressing rooms, electric fixtures and typewriters, billing, stenciling, adding and addressing machines, filing cabinets, safes, platform trucks, wheel barrows, grain scoops, scales, and packing tools, which the Commissioner reduced to 5 per cent.
    Depreciation of autos and trucks was allowed at 25 per cent, while the taxpayer is claiming 33^ por cent thereon.
    DECISION.
    The determination of the Commissioner is approved.
   OPINION.

Morris:

The contributions claimed by the taxpayer as deductible are not.ordinary and necessary expenses paid in carrying on the business, within the meaning of section 234 (a) (1) of the Revenue Act of 1918. Appeal of Woolf & Reynolds, Inc., 1 B. T. A. 1092; Appeal of The Thomas Shoe Co., 1 B. T. A. 124.

The taxpayer admits that 2per cent is a reasonable depreciation rate on the building, but claims a composite rate of 3 per cent on “ building assets ” on a March 1,1913, value of $261,101.92. No competent evidence was introduced to sustain that value or to show their useful life. As the evidence was also insufficient as to the value and useful life of the other assets upon which additional depreciation is claimed, the values and depreciation rates used by the Commissioner must be approved.