obsolescence
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 279 U.S. 333 - Weiss v. Wiener · 1929Most cited · 614 citing opinions
the loss must be actual and present, not merely contemplated as more or less sure to occur in the future. If the taxpayer owns the property the loss actually has taken place.
How the Supreme Court has restated “obsolescence”
Each Supreme Court definition of “obsolescence,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “obsolescence”
Court decisions citing the 5 opinions that defined “obsolescence” — 1,664 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 5 definitions, chronological · 1929–1940
Obsolescence may arise as the result of laws regulating or forbidding the particular use of the property as well as from changes in the art, the shifting of business centers, loss of trade, inadequacy, or other causes.
Obsolescence' may arise from changes in the art, shifting of business centers, loss of trade, inadequacy, supersession, prohibitory laws, and other things which, apart from physical deterioration, operate to cause plant elements or the plant as a whole to suffer diminution in value
Obsolescence, the loss in value of property due to the fact that because of changing conditions it has ceased to be useful.
in general, obsolescence under the Act connotes functional depreciation, as it does in accounting and engineering terminology. More than non-use or disuse is necessary to establish it. For obsolescence under the Act requires that the operative cause of the present or growing uselessness arise from external forces which make it desirable or imperative that the property be replaced.
tax law