Harold Hitz Burton

“ Since the early days of our income tax levies, rentals and royalties paid for the use of or for the privilege of using in the United States, patents, copyrights and other like property have been taxed to nonresident aliens and for many years at least a part of the tax has been withheld at the source of the income. ”

“ Fixed and determinable income, from a tax standpoint, may be received either in annual or other payments without altering in the least the need or the reasons for taxing such income or for withholding a part of it at its source. One advance payment to cover the entire 28-year period of a copyright comes within the reason and reach of the Revenue Acts as well as, or even better than, two or more partial payments of the same sum.
Article 143-2 of Treasury Regulations 101, issued under the Revenue Act of 1938, provided:
"The income need not be paid annually if it is paid periodically ”

“ After each story's serial publication, Curtis reassigned to the respondent, on the latter's demand, all rights in and to the story excepting those rights which the respondent expressly had agreed that Curtis was to retain. The respective sums were thus paid to the respondent, in advance and in full, for the serial or book rights which he had made available. For United States income tax purposes, the respondent's literary agent, or some other withholding agent, withheld from the respondent, or from his wife as his assignee, a part of each payment. ”

“ In these assessments, among other items, the Commissioner claimed deficiencies in the respondent's income tax payments based upon his above-described 1938 and 1941 receipts. The respondent, in a petition to the Tax Court for a redetermination of such deficiencies, not only contested the additional taxes assessed against him, which were based upon the full amounts of those receipts, but he asked also for the refund to him of the amounts which had been withheld, for income tax purposes, from each such payment. ”

“ That the length of time during which the payments are to be made may be increased or diminished in accordance with someone's will or with the happening of an event does not make the payments any the less determinable or periodical. ”