Washington American League Base Ball Club, Inc. v. District of Columbia

McGOWAN, Circuit Judge.

This petition to review a decision of the District of Columbia Tax Court evokes a lingering echo of what was, from 1905 to 1960, one of the District’s most distinctive institutions in its capacity to elevate and to depress, in swift alternation, the spirits of the community. It was the eventual ending, in the latter year, of this ambivalent and highly volatile relationship that gives rise to the issues before us.

In its Corporation Franchise Tax Return for 1960, petitioner deducted, as an ordinary expense incident to the conduct of its business, an item of $790,000,…