# A promise to pay is not payment: Helvering v. Price, 309 U.S. 409 (1940) Governs why a party's totals never count a promise as a payment (rules.md B-35): a bill, a fee charged on the party's own card, equipment bought on the seller's own note, or a distribution still owed counts when it is paid, not when it is promised. The Supreme Court held that a taxpayer reporting on the cash basis who gave his own note, even a secured one, had not paid. Opinions of the Supreme Court are works of the United States Government (`us-public-domain-status.md`). ## Helvering v. Price, 309 U.S. 409, 412-413 (1940) Source: (United States Reports, Library of Congress) Retrieved: 2026-10-20 SHA-256 of the retrieved file (`usrep309409.pdf`): `ac58d7cb0fbe1257c7ad5e75152e540544194c6accabe261b02068f6cebd7efe` > As the return was on the cash basis, there could be no deduction in the year 1932, unless the substitution of respondent's note in that year constituted a payment in cash or its equivalent. There was no cash payment and under the doctrine of the Eckert case the giving of the taxpayer's own note was not the equivalent of cash to entitle the taxpayer to the deduction. > Respondent urges that his note was secured, but the collateral was not payment. It was given to secure respondent's promise to pay, and if that promise to pay was not sufficient to warrant the deduction until the promise was made good by actual payment, the giving of security for performance did not transform the promise into the payment required to constitute a deductible loss in the taxable year.