Court Opinion

ID: 9651259
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:11:29.627543+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:31.376131
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
It seems to me that in Rohmer v. Commissioner, 2 Cir., 153 F.2d 61, we overruled sub silentio, Cohan v. Commissioner, 2 Cir., 39 F.2d 540, a decision which had stood for sixteen years, had been often cited, never with disapproval I think. Moreover, Rohmer v. Commissioner, supra, so far as I can see, is directly contrary to *927Helvering v. Taylor, 293 U.S. 507, 513, 515, 55 S.Ct. 287, 79 L.Ed. 623, which I had supposed decided that, when it appeared that a taxpayer was entitled to something, it was an error for even the Tax Court to deny him any allowance whatever, although of course we should be bound to accept whatever that allowance might be. Here i-t is clear beyond doubt that the payments were made in some part for the foreign copyrights; yet the Tax Court has refused any allowance at all because Molnar has not shown how much; and I am unable to understand my brothers’ reasondng by which they reconcile that result with the law, as I understand it was before Rohmer v. Commissioner, supra. However, I think that only in the rarest instances should we overrule so recent a decision of our own court, however much in a court differently constituted the judges may disagree with it; for it is as much the function of the Supreme Court to decide differences within a circuit as between circuits. Therefore I yield to the authority of Rohmer v. Commisssioner, supra, and what I am now saying is only to record my personal disagreement.