North County radio mogul fights IRS

N. Arthur Astor, owner of North County Broadcasting Corp. in Carlsbad, has been in broadcasting 60 years. He owns KFSD-AM in San Diego County and sold KCEO in March. He regularly buys and sells stations, mainly in California.

The Tax Court in Washington DC recently took up Astor's suit against the Internal Revenue Service. On its tax return for 2004, Astor's company, Aries Communications, took Astor's salary of $6,896,974 as a deduction. The IRS disallowed all but $810,000 of that. Astor sued the IRS.

The Tax Court, after going through several mathematical formulae, said Astor was deducting too much. But it permitted Astor to deduct $2,660,899, which included a fixed salary of almost $200,000 and four years for which he had taken too little as deductions.