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wanderbooks/docs/spec/sources/helvering-v-price-1940.md
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swaitsandClaude Opus 5.5 c2ceabbae9 P3: party totals by what moved the money, once (defects 14, 11, 24)
Each party's part of an entry is signed as its own account would show it,
with a direction and its cash and in-kind amounts; a reversal is its
original negated. Totals on a cash or all basis: for a member, all equals
the members' equity statement and cash the K-1's cash. Money is cash,
cards and the financing accounts, and a liability credit never pays its
own creditor (creditor_of), so accruals and declared distributions count
once. tin_last4 from the TIN or W-9 facts.

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2026-10-21 12:12:26 -06:00

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# 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: <https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep309/usrep309409/usrep309409.pdf> (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.