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20 B.T.A. 917

Hal E. Roach Studios v. Commissioner

United States Board of Tax Appeals

Decided September 23, 1930

United States Board of Tax Appeals · decided 1930-09-23

Amount of deduction allowable to a motion picture corporation for expense of operation and maintenance of a yacht necessary for and used in making marine pictures, but also used for pleasure purposes, determined.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“Though the evidence was not precise on the relative costs incurred for business and pleasure use, we are satisfied that at least one-half of the expense was an ordinary and necessary expense of petitioner’s business, and accordingly we allow the sum of $8,776.67 as a deduction [$17,543.35 having been disallowed by the Commissioner]. [Id. at 919.]”

quoted by 1 later decision, including A.E. Staley Mfg. Co. v. Commissioner

Relies on Dickinson v. Commissioner

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1930-09-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently September 1995

1 federal appellate ·

101930194019501960197019801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1*918OPINION.

Van Fossan:

¶2In methods of operation, standards of expenditure and concept of relative money values it is not perhaps too much to say that the moving picture industry is sui juris. Its criteria of what are ordinary and necessary expenditures are very different from most businesses. Thus it is that the building by petitioner of a small yacht for use in the production of marine pictures was under the circumstances of this case entirely understandable. In fact, we do not understand respondent to question petitioner’s judgment in so doing. The only question is whether the expense of upkeep and operation was an ordinary and necessary expense.

¶3*919Since the acquisition of a yacht for use in petitioner’s business was a proper business investment, it would seem to follow that the expense of its upkeep and operation would ordinarily be properly chargeable to the business. See E. E. Dickinson, 8 B. T. A. 722. An exception to this conclusion, however, arises in the case of personal use.

¶4The facts show that the petitioner acquired the boat solely for business purposes; that it used it in the making of a series of pictures ; that after the failure of these pictures to sell petitioner made little use of the boat in its business. The evidence further establishes that the boat was used to an undetermined extent by various persons for pleasure, but that at such times all expense for food and supplies was personally paid, and that the only considerable expense paid by the petitioner which would otherwise not have been incurred was for fuel oil.

¶5It is a well known fact, and the evidence here is to the same effect, that a boat deteriorates in condition and value very rapidly if not kept constantly in first-class shape. The expense of so doing would be a normal and proper expense of petitioner’s business.

¶6Albeit the boat was not used more than a dozen times for picture production, it was at all times kept available, and had the boat not been used at all for pleasure much of the expensfe of maintenance would have been incurred nevertheless.

¶7Though the evidence was not precise on the relative costs incurred for business and pleasure use, we are satisfied that at least one-half of the expense was an ordinary and necessary expense of petitioner’s business, and accordingly we allow the sum of $8,776.67 as a deduction.

¶8Decision will he entered wider Rule 50.

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