Court Opinion

ID: 4495779
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2020-01-23 18:14:30.779249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:54:13.181863
License: Public Domain

TRAmmell,
dissenting2: I am unable to agree that the entire amount of $140,000 is gross income in 1928. The fact is that it can not be determined what part, if any, of said amount constituted gross income, or certainly net income.
The petitioner sold the gas output, which it would require several years to produce and deliver, for $140,000, received in advance. If the expenses of production, including the exhaustion of physical equipment used for that purpose, equaled the amount received, there would have been no income at all. If a contractor receives an amount in one year as a contract price for building a house, obviously the total amount received is not income. There must be offset against the amount received what it cost to build the house. The illustration is applicable to this case in that petitioner received $140,000 in 1928 for the production and delivery of gas in future years. What it cost to produce and deliver the gas, certainly, would reduce the profit the taxpayer received.
The respondent takes the position that the contract constituted a sale of a capital asset; that the full amount received by petitioner in 1928 should be taxed as income for that year, diminished only by that portion of the leasehold cost applicable to the gas leases; that the petitioner is not entitled to any deduction for depletion based on the amount of $140,000 so received; that petitioner is not entitled to deduct the unexhausted cost of plant and equipment nor expenses incurred or to be incurred in the performance of the contract.
In my opinion, the amount received should either be spread or prorated over the estimated period representing the life of profitable production from the effective date of the contract. In other words, the amount received should be allocated in accordance with the amount of gas delivered each year, and against that should be deducted expenses of operation, depreciation of plant, etc.; or the determination of the amount of taxable gain should be deferred until it could be determined what the actual amount of the taxable gain was. It is entirely possible that the taxpayer at the expiration *1136of the contract had-no gain whatever from the receipt of $140,000. While the taxpayer reported upon the accrual basis, that method clearly did not reflect income and some method should be used which would clearly reflect the income of the taxpayer. I see no objection to the use of the completed contract method in the determination of income in this case. In my opinion, it is immaterial that the respondent’s regulations restrict the long term contract method of reporting income to building, installation, or construction contracts. Neither the Commissioner’s regulations nor the taxpayer’s erroneous method of accounting as to this transaction can operate to nullify the mandatory requirements of the statute that the computation of net income shall be made in accordance with such method as will clearly reflect the income.
We applied the long term contract method, in the case of Falketind Ship Co., 6 B. T. A. 44. In that case the taxpayer received money for passage and freight in advance of the voyage, which occurred during portions of two accounting periods. We held that the receipts or gross income should be offset by the expenses of the voyage subsequently incurred, and that the net income be reported for the year in which the voyage was completed. This decision was cited with approval in Kahuku Plantation Co., 12 B. T. A. 977. The same principle is involved in Kekaha Sugar Co., Ltd., 13 B. T. A. 690, affirmed on this point, 50 Fed. (2d) 322.
All receipts obviously do not constitute income. Before income can be received the cost of producing it must be returned. That is not true in this case.
Mellott agrees with this dissent.

 This dissent was filed during Mr. Trammell’s term of office.