Court Opinion

ID: 9459683
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:28:34.527061+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:17.034051
License: Public Domain

HASTIE, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur, although to me the technical problem presented is somewhat simpler than Judge Aldisert’s opinion indicates. In summary, my analysis is this.
The language' of the several interrelated provisions of the contract between the taxpayer and the recording artist is apt to convey the meaning that the Commissioner and the Tax Court have attributed to it. On the other hand, to support its conclusion that, for tax deduction purposes during the taxable years, certain royalty obligations were no longer “contingent,” the taxpayer has had to labor to extract from a formal writing meaning that its terms do not readily convey. Therefore, as a matter of law, the taxpayer’s interpretation of the contract cannot properly prevail in a judicial tribunal, whether in a court of first instance or on appeal.
Once the Tax Court’s construction of the contract is accepted as legally correct, the undisputed facts clearly establish, as Judge Aldisert’s opinion shows, that the items deducted by the taxpayer as fixed accrued liabilities of the taxable years were only contingent obligations of undeterminable amount until some subsequent time.