Court Opinion

ID: 9447388
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:33:47.524837+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:01.192124
License: Public Domain

WHITAKER, Judge
(dissenting).
I am unable to agree with the majority. Section 455(a) of the Excess Profits Tax Act of 1950 provides that: “Any taxpayer computing income from instalment sales under the method provided by section 44(a) * * * may elect, in its return for the taxable year, * * * to compute * * * its income from instalment sales or instalment sales obligations on the basis of the taxable period for which such ineome is accrued * * (Italics supplied.) The “return for the taxable year”, in the case of a corporation making its return on the basis of a calendar year, is the one the law requires it to file on March 15 following the taxable year. The tax law does not make any provision for amended returns.
Hence, the election must be made when the return for the taxable year is filed. The statute does not confer on the Commissioner the authority to extend the time. He could not have done so directly, *231nor can he do so indirectly by allowing the filing of the amended return, nor even by assessing the tax shown to be due on the amended return for one of the years.
It must be confessed that the action of the Commissioner, in assessing the tax due on the amended return and denying a refund of the overpayment shown to have been made in subsequent years, was completely inconsistent. However, the Commissioner neither directly nor indirectly can set aside a requirement laid down by Congress. That requirement is that the election be made in the “return for the taxable year”, and there is no escape from the conclusion that Congress was referring to the return that every taxpayer is required to file for the taxable year and not to some amended return not mentioned in the statute but which the Commissioner permitted it to file later on.