Hutzler Bros. Co. v. Commissioner
United States Tax Court
Petitioner, a department store, heretofore reporting inventory on basis of retail method, held not precluded from electing to use the last in, first out method of maintaining inventories, as permitted by Internal Revenue Code, section 22(d), notwithstanding that as customary under the retail method it continues to take and record inventory by department dollar totals at retail and at cost and not by specific items.
1Opinion of the Court
OPINION.
Offer, Judge:
Although the subject matter of the present proceeding is complex and technical, its general purpose is one which can be simply stated in terms of everyday general experience. The central problem is one dealing with inventories which, in the case of department stores, are kept by the use of a unit which is the dollar. When prices or costs are constant, any increase or decrease in the dollar amount will furnish a reasonably reliable measure of the increase or decrease in the physical inventory. But it is common and sometimes bitter experience that in a period of rising…
2Cases cited2 opinions
- Helvering v. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.Supreme Court of the United States · 1939
- Lucas v. Kansas City Structural Steel Co.Supreme Court of the United States · 1930
3Cited by45 opinions
- Fox Chevrolet, Inc. (Maryland) v. CommissionerUnited States Tax Court · 1981
- Peninsula Steel Products & Equipment Co. v. CommissionerUnited States Tax Court · 1982
- Hamilton Industries, Inc. v. CommissionerUnited States Tax Court · 1991
- Reco Industries, Inc. v. CommissionerUnited States Tax Court · 1984
- R. H. MacY & Co., Inc., L. Bamberger & Co., Davison-Paxon Co., and the La Salle & Koch Company v. United StatesCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit · 1958
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