United States v. Swank

The owner of an economic interest in a mineral deposit is allowed a special deduction from taxable income measured by a percentage of his gross income derived from exhaustion of the mineral. This deduction, codified in §§611 and 613 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, is designed to compensate such owners for the exhaustion of their interest in a wasting asset, the mineral in place.1 This case presents the question *573whether that “percentage depletion” allowance must be denied to otherwise eligible lessees of underground coal because their leases were subject to termination by the lessor on…