Vesuvius Crucible Company, a Pennsylvania Corporation v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

The tax problem here presented is whether the taxpayer corporation was entitled to deduct from its income for 1957 payments totaling $18,000. which it made during that year to the widow of its deceased president. If the payments qualify as an ordinary and necessary business expense they are of course so deductible under Section 162 of the 1954 Revenue Code. That question is one of fact. Commissioner v. Heininger, 320 U.S. 467, 475, 64 S.Ct. 249, 88 L.Ed. 171 (1943). The motivation alleged for the payments was to provide an added incentive to present as well as prospective principals of the…