Depending on your profession, it appears that breasts can qualify as business assets--and depreciable ones at that.
Indiana exotic dancer Cynthia S. Hess, a.k.a. ``Chesty Love,'' claimed a $2,088 deduction in 1988 for depreciation on the surgical implants that enlarged her bust to size 56FF.
Special Trial Judge Joan Seitz Pate of U.S. Tax Court has allowed the deduction, ruling that the implants did indeed increase Hess' income and that the breasts are so large and cumbersome--about 10 pounds each--that they make her appear ``freakish'' and she couldn't derive personal benefit from them.
Alert reader Dave Moore notes that Newsweek ran an update of the Chesty Love story in their last 1994 issue (George Will's column). Apparantly she recently slipped on a patch of ice and ruptured one of her implants. Talk about quick depreciation.
Edited and converted to HTML by Dan Bornstein.