The difficulty with the petitioner's argument is that the sine qua non of a trade or business as described in section 162 is the existence*121 of a profit motive. E.g., Szmak v. Commissioner, 376 F. 2d 154 (C.A. 2, 1967), affg. a Memorandum Opinion of this Court; Lamont v. Commissioner, 339 F. 2d 377 (C.A. 2, 1964), affg. a Memorandum Opinion of this Court; Henry P. White, 23 T.C. 90">23 T.C. 90 (1954), affd. per curiam 227 F. 2d 779 (C.A. 6, 1955); Frederick A. Purdy, 12 T.C. 888">12 T.C. 888 (1949). There have been many cases discussing the nature of the required motive - its intensity, its reasonableness, its consistency. Although there is some disagreement as to whether the requisite profit motive need be reasonable or dominant (compare, e.g., Mercer v. Commissioner, 376 F.2d 708">376 F. 2d 708, 710 (C.A. 9, 1967), revg. a Memorandum Opinion of this Court, with Godfrey v. Commissioner, 335 F. 2d 82, 84 (C.A. 6, 1964), affg. a Memorandum Opinion of this Court, the cases are consistent in holding that a profit motive of some description is a prerequisite to the finding of a trade or business. It is unnecessary for us to pass upon the precise formulation of the requirement, because we are forced to conclude that the petitioner's activities during 1963, 1964, and 1965 in*122 research, development, writing, and publishing were not motivated to any degree by a hope or expectation of profit, reasonable or unreasonable, current or future, from such activities.
The petitioner is a successful businessman, deriving substantial income from his construction business. This business provided him the resources to carry on the 945 research and publishing activities in question here. There is no indication of an intent to augment his construction business income with income from these activities. Although revenues were only a small fraction of the expenses incurred in these activities, this was, so far as the record shows, a matter of complete unconcern to the petitioner.
The petitioner is an obviously sincere man with firm convictions in religious, political, economic, and social matters, and his activities in writing and publishing during the years before us, which were seriously and vigorously pursued, were directed in large measure to the dissemination of those convictions. However, almost all of his writings were distributed free of charge, and the evidence, as we have detailed it in our Findings of Fact, compels the conclusion that the petitioner did*123 not intend or attempt to make a profit from the sale of his writings during such years. Although contributions to his efforts were accepted, they were not strongly solicited and were in no way a condition of the petitioner's continuing with his work of writing and distributing his ideas. Indeed, until 1965, such contributions as were accepted were not recorded on the petitioner's books, but were given away to "worthy causes," a factor indicating the petitioner's relative lack of concern even with recouping costs, to say nothing of profit. Although a bank account was opened in 1965, and donations deposited therein, the record in no way supports a conclusion that this marked a fundamental change in the petitioner's purposes, objective, and motivation.
The petitioner concedes on brief that immediate profit was not the goal of his efforts. However, he contends that his research and writing activities were directed toward the development and perfection of a system of communication, an "expositional format," and that his publications were significant not for what they said but for the manner in which ideas were expressed. We have some difficulty accepting the proposition that the ideas*124 expressed in his writings were not important to the petitioner; his writings show him to be a person of firm convictions, with a desire to express them and to convince others of their merit. However, we do not doubt that one of the petitioner's purposes was to develop an expositional format, which would better convey to the reader the sense of the writing, but we have no evidence that the enterprise was profit-oriented. At every step of the way, from the introduction of differential reasoning to the presentation of Analytic Exposition, the petitioner carefully explained his methods in his writing and urged other people to use them, free of charge. The record contains not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that during the years before us the petitioner had the hope or intention of using his system of communication, if, as, and when successfully developed, to produce profits. He did not so testify at trial, he did not represent to the respondent's agents that his activities were profit oriented, and his generosity with his ideas and his methods, coupled with the lack of any indication of a desire to reap material benefit from his writing and publishing activities, compel the conclusion*125 that the quest for profit comprised no part of the motivation for these activities. Although the petitioner did, after the conference with the respondent's representatives in 1966, adopt the practice of placing a price on his publications, the evidence is still insufficient to indicate that in the years before us he was engaged in establishing a business for profit.
In Henry P. White, supra, at 94, we said: The gratification derived from an occupation worth doing, possibly beneficial to others and probably requiring long hours of arduous labor, must still not be confused with an intention to return a profit. * * *
That admonition is relevant here; we accept the indisputable fact that the petitioner's work was important to him and perhaps to others, but find that his publication activities in the years before us were not directed toward making a profit. He was indifferent as to whether his publication activities produced a profit.
Our finding on this issue effectively distinguishes all the cases relied on by the petitioner. E.g., Doggett v. Burnet, 65 F. 2d 191 (C.A.D.C. 1931); Wilson v. Eisner, 282 F. 38">282 F. 38 (C.A. 2, 1922); Margaret E. Amory, 22 B.T.A. 1398">22 B.T.A. 1398 (1931);*126 George D. Widener et al., 8 B.T.A. 651">8 B.T.A. 651 (1927), affd. 33 F. 2d 833 (C.A. 3, 1929). In those cases, the Court allowed deductions for the losses of a new business because it found that the taxpayer was engaged in business for profit.
Decision will be entered for the respondent. 946
Footnotes
1. All statutory references are to the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.↩
2. The stipulation of facts in this case consisted entirely of a list of documents which were introduced into evidence, some of which are referred to or described in our Findings of Fact.↩
3. The following schedule shows the amounts claimed as deductions on the petitioner's return for "research" - the activities at issue in this proceeding - and the amounts disallowed by the respondent:
Year
Claimed
Disallowed
1963
$ 2,815.58
$ 2,275.58
1964
12,962.00
11,205.00
1965
17,159.00
14,779.00
The difference between the amounts claimed and the amounts disallowed represents the cost of Christmas cards which the respondent determined was an expense of the petitioner's construction business. The evidence does not explain the discrepancy between the figures shown on the returns and those shown on the petitioner's books and records.↩