Newark Morning Ledger Co v. United States

Decision Date20 April 1993
Docket NumberNo. 91-1135,91-1135
Citation123 L.Ed.2d 288,113 S.Ct. 1670,507 U.S. 546
PartiesNEWARK MORNING LEDGER CO. as Successor to the Herald Company, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES
CourtU.S. Supreme Court
Syllabus *

Petitioner newspaper publisher is the successor to The Herald Company. When, in 1976, Herald purchased substantially all the outstanding shares of Booth Newspapers, Inc., it allocated its adjusted income tax basis in the Booth shares among the assets it acquired in its merger with Booth. Among other things, it allocated $67.8 million to an intangible asset denominated "paid subscribers," a figure that was petitioner's estimate of future profits to be derived from identified subscribers to Booth's eight newspapers on the date of merger. On its federal income tax returns for 1977-1980, Herald claimed depreciation deductions for the $67.8 million, which were disallowed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on the ground that the concept of "paid subscribers" was indistinguishable from goodwill and, therefore, was nondepreciable. Herald paid the taxes, and petitioner filed refund claims and ultimately brought suit in the District Court to recover taxes and interest paid. At trial, the Government did not contest petitioner's expert evidence on the methodology used to calculate its figure and stipulated to the useful life of "paid subscribers" for each newspaper. Instead, it estimated the asset's value at $3 million, the cost of generating new subscriptions, and its principal argument remained that the asset was indistinguishable from goodwill. The court ruled in petitioner's favor, finding that the asset was not self-regenerating—i.e., it had a limited useful life, the duration of which could be calculated with reasonable accuracy—that petitioner properly calculated its value, and that it was separate and distinct from goodwill. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that even though the asset may have a limited useful life that can be ascertained with reasonable accuracy, its value is not separate and distinct from goodwill.

Held:

1. A taxpayer able to prove that a particular asset can be valued and that it has a limited useful life may depreciate its value over its useful life regardless of how much the asset appears to reflect the expectancy of continued patronage. Pp. ____.

(a) While the depreciation allowance of § 167(a) of the Internal Revenue Code applies to intangible assets, the IRS has consistently taken the position that goodwill is nondepreciable. Since the value of customer-based intangibles, such as customer and subscriber lists, obviously depends on continued and voluntary customer patronage, the question has been whether these intangibles can be depreciated notwithstanding their relationship to such patronage. The "mass asset" rule that courts often resort to in considering this question prohibits depreciation when the assets constitute self-regenerating assets that may change but never waste. Pp. ____.

(b) Whether or not taxpayers have been successful in separating depreciable intangible assets from goodwill in any particular case is a question of fact. The question is not whether an asset falls within the core of the concept of goodwill, but whether it is capable of being valued and whether that value diminishes over time. Pp. ____.

(2) Petitioner has borne successfully its substantial burden of proving that "paid subscribers" constitutes an intangible asset with an ascertainable value and a limited useful life, the duration of which can be ascertained with reasonable accuracy. It has proved that the asset is not self-regenerating but rather wastes as a finite number of component subscriptions are canceled over a reasonably predictable period of time. The Government presented no evidence to refute the methodology petitioner used to estimate the asset's fair market value, and the uncontroverted evidence presented at trial revealed that "paid subscribers" had substantial value over and above that of a mere list of customers, as it was mistakenly characterized by the Government. Pp. ____.

945 F.2d 555, reversed and remanded.

BLACKMUN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which STEVENS, O'CONNOR, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. SOUTER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and WHITE and SCALIA, JJ., joined.

Robert H. Bork, Washington, DC, argued for petitioner.

Lawrence G. Wallace, Washington, DC, argued for respondent.

Justice BLACKMUN delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents the issue whether, under § 167 of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C. § 167, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may treat as nondepreciable an intangible asset proved to have an ascertainable value and a limited useful life, the duration of which can be ascertained with reasonable accuracy, solely because the IRS considers the asset to be goodwill as a matter of law.1

I

Petitioner Newark Morning Ledger Co., a New Jersey corporation, is a newspaper publisher. It is the successor to The Herald Company with which it merged in 1987. Eleven years earlier, in 1976, Herald had purchased substantially all the outstanding shares of Booth Newspapers, Inc., the publisher of daily and Sunday newspapers in eight Michigan communities.2 Herald and Booth merged on May 31, 1977, and Herald continued to publish the eight papers under their old names. Tax code provisions in effect in 1977 required that Herald allocate its adjusted income tax basis in the Booth shares among the assets acquired in proportion to their respective fair market values at the time of the merger. See 26 U.S.C. §§ 332 and 334(b)(2) (1976 ed.).3

Prior to the merger, Herald's adjusted basis in the Booth shares was approximately $328 million. Herald allocated $234 million of this to various financial assets (cash, securities, accounts and notes receivable, the shares of its wholly owned subsidiary that published Parade Magazine, etc.) and tangible assets (land, buildings, inventories, production equipment, computer hardware, etc.). Herald also allocated $67.8 million to an intangible asset denominated "paid subscribers." 4 This consisted of 460,000 identified subscribers to the eight Booth newspapers as of May 31, 1977, the date of merger. These subscribers were customers each of whom had requested that the paper be delivered regularly to a specified address in return for payment of the subscription price. The $67.8 million figure was petitioner's estimate of future profits to be derived from these at-will subscribers, all or most of whom were expected to continue to subscribe after the Herald acquisition. The number of "paid subscribers" was apparently an important factor in Herald's decision to purchase Booth and in its determination of the appropriate purchase price for the Booth shares. See Brief for Petitioner 4-5. After these allocations, the approximately $26.2 million remaining was allocated to going-concern value and goodwill.

On its federal income tax returns for the calendar years 1977-1980, inclusive, Herald claimed depreciation deductions on a straight-line basis for the $67.8 million allocated to "paid subscribers." The IRS disallowed these deductions on the ground that the concept of "paid subscribers" was indistinguishable from goodwill and, therefore, was nondepreciable under the applicable Regulations. Herald paid the resulting additional taxes. After the 1987 merger, petitioner filed timely claims for refund. The IRS took no action on the claims, and, upon the expiration of the prescribed 6-month period, see 26 U.S.C. § 6532(a)(1), petitioner brought suit in the District of New Jersey to recover taxes and interest that it claimed had been assessed and collected erroneously.

The case was tried to the court. Petitioner presented financial and statistical experts who testified that, using generally accepted statistical techniques, they were able to estimate how long the average at-will subscriber of each Booth newspaper as of May 31, 1977, would continue to subscribe. The estimates ranged from 14.7 years for a daily subscriber to The Ann Arbor News to 23.4 years for a subscriber to the Sunday edition of The Bay City Times. This was so despite the fact that the total number of subscribers remained almost constant during the tax years in question. The experts based their estimates on actuarial factors such as death, relocation, changing tastes, and competition from other media. The experts also testified that the value of "paid subscribers" was appropriately calculated using the "income approach." Under this, petitioner's experts first calculated the present value of the gross-revenue stream that would be generated by these subscriptions over their estimated useful lives. From that amount they subtracted projected costs of collecting the subscription revenue. Petitioner contended that the resulting estimated net-revenue stream—calculated as $67,773,000 by one of its experts—was a reasonable estimate of the value of "paid subscribers."

The Government did not contest petitioner's expert evidence at all. In fact, it stipulated to the estimates of the useful life of "paid subscribers" for each newspaper. Also, on valuation, the Government presented little or no evidence challenging petitioner's calculations. Instead, it argued that the only value attributable to the asset in question was the cost of generating 460,000 news subscribers through a subscription drive. Under this "cost approach," the Government estimated the value of the asset to be approximately $3 million.

The Government's principal argument throughout the litigation has been that "paid subscribers" represents an asset indistinguishable from the goodwill of the Booth newspapers. According to the Government, the future stream of revenue expected to be generated by the 460,000 "paid subscribers" represented the very essence of the goodwill value of the newspapers. It argued that because goodwill is nondepreciable, the value of "paid...

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