Court Opinion

ID: 9468898
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:26:17.154105+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:06.280795
License: Public Domain

FLOYD R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I am in accord with the tax court’s ruling that Hawkeye should be allowed to deduct the loss on the $35,000 option which lapsed in 1973. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.
The tax court, in that portion of its opinion quoted ante at 4, found that the $35,000 forfeited by the taxpayer Hawkeye as of July 11,1973, when option number 1 lapsed, represented the amount paid for that lapsed option. The majority rejected that characterization of the transaction and found that “[although Hawkeye would pay $35,000 more to purchase the building each year it failed to exercise an option, those payments, together with the base price of $2,000,000, would represent Hawkeye’s cost of acquiring the building.” It seems to me that here the majority goes out of its way to find that the transaction in question is something other than what the parties unequivocally structured it to be.
The $35,000 at issue clearly does not solely represent part of the “cost of acquiring the building.” Hawkeye did in fact purchase with that money the exclusive right either to buy or not to buy the Stephens Building during the period from July 12, 1972, until July 11, 1973. Whether Haw-keye ultimately buys the building or not, the right to do so during the period in question and Hawkeye’s right to the $35,000 lapse. If Hawkeye never buys the building, it will have no “acquisition costs.”
In addition, I agree with the tax court’s finding that “[t]he contract itself is clear and unambiguous stating that Stephens Industries, Inc., the owner of the Stephens Building, granted Hawkeye 10 separate 1-year options valued at $35,000 per option.” In my opinion, parties should be allowed the widest possible latitude in structuring bona fide business arrangements, as long as those arrangements are consistent with sound public policy. In the instant case, the net result to the public is essentially the same under the holdings of both the tax court and this court. Although the optionee is entitled to a deduction upon the lapse of an option, the optioner must at that time rec*788ognize the amount paid for the option as income. Therefore, I would accept that characterization of the transaction which was bargained for at arms-length by the parties and affirm the judgment of the tax court.