Balsam Mountain Investments, LLC , Balsam Mountain Management Company, LLC, F.K.A. Balsam Mountain Company, LLC, Tax Matters Partner, finds itself Belked of its scenic easement writeoff in 2015 T. C. Memo. 43, filed 3/12/15.

Again we find a mix-and-match of the beauteous North Carolina landscape, but only a mere 5% of the 22 acres thereof can be mixmastered, and the total acreage must remain at 22 contiguous acres.

No good, says Judge Morrison. The magic Section 170(h)(2)(c) language requires the servient tenement (no, that’s the property encumbered by an easement, not a crash pad for extras from “Fifty Shares of Grey”) be “an identifiable, specific piece of real property.” And it must be so and remain so. Any change, large or small, defeats the explicit words of Section 170 and the Belk case.

And no, says Judge Morrison, we aren’t overruling Belk any time soon.

Remember the trials and tribulations of the famiglia Belk? No? See my blogpost “A Thing Of Beauty – Accept No Substitutes”, 1/28/13, and the Belks’ second swing at the baseball, “If At First You Don’t Succeed”, 6/20/13.