On Publishing Companies and the Internal Revenue Service

1980 NCTE Annual Business Meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio

Background This resolution was prompted by a U.S. Supreme Court decision of 1979 upholding an IRS ruling that warehouse stock could not be depreciated for tax purposes unless the stock were also reduced in price or destroyed.  The IRS subsequently clarified its policy to apply to publishing companies.           NCTE members warned that the resulting higher cost to publishers of maintaining stock of scholarly works and backlist titles would make the industry reluctant to publish significant books whose sale would be modest and/or extend over a period of years.  The availability of high-quality books would thus be reduced.  Be it therefore Resolution Resolved, that the National Council of Teachers of English express its concern that the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Thor Power Tool Company v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue will have a disastrous impact on the publishing industry's printing and dissemination of scholarly books and other literature of high quality; and           that NCTE endorse H.R. 7390 and S.B. 2805 or other legislation to exempt publishing companies from this decision.