Court Opinion

ID: 9445187
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:22:07.756222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:09.492567
License: Public Domain

PARKER, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I think that the decision of the Tax Court should be affirmed for reasons adequately stated by that court in the decision below and in the case of George A. Papineau, 16 T.C. 130. The question involved is not one of deducting personal expenses from a tax return. It is whether deductions for the expense of operating the business should be decreased because the owner of the hotel eats and lodges at the hotel in connection with operating it. The Tax Court answered this question in the negative on the theory that meals and lodging incidental to carrying on a business are to be treated as an expense of the business rather than as a personal expense. It is on this theory that the statute excludes from gross income of an employee the value of meals furnished the employee whose presence is required on the premises. See section 119 of Revenue Code of 1954. There is no reason why the value of such meals should be considered as income and as the personal expense of the taxpayer merely because he is self employed in his own business rather than employed in the business of another. The question involved is, strictly speaking, neither one of fact nor of law, but of the minor policy type involved in such matters as whether the owner of a dairy farm should decrease the deduction due to expense of operation because he has consumed some of the milk produced by the dairy. These are just the sort of questions that the Tax Court, because of its wide experience in tax matters, is peculiarly competent to decide. I would not disturb its decision here, which is in accord with its decision in a number of other cases.