Court Opinion

ID: 9653609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:49:51.085801+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:00.329416
License: Public Domain

*735SWAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In determining taxable gains on non-capital assets, a taxpayer is allowed to offset losses on the sale or exchange of similar assets. I cannot imagine any reason why the Congress should wish to tax a man more if he made his gains in conjunction with a partner than if both gains and losses were wholly individual. Prior to the enactment of section 23 (r), there was admittedly no such purpose, and a loss sustained on assets held individually could be offset against gains on assets owned in partnership. That section itself does not express an intention now to forbid it, but my brothers find such an intention in a negative implication from other sections which relate to credits against net income. To my mind those sections carry no implication against a deduction from gross income — the issue before us. They were taken over from earlier acts under which they carried no implication that a deduction of the sort now demanded was.not permissible. I think it is still permissible, since the language of the new provision, section 23 (r), does not forbid it. In my opinion, the order should be reversed.