56 STAT.] 77TH CONG. , 2D SESS.-CH. 619-OCT. 21, 1942 927 and such taxable year shall be considered to have begun in the base period year with which or within which such taxable year of the acquiring corporation began. "(b) By adding the plus amounts ascertained under subsection (a) (2) for each year of the base period; and "(1) If the tax under this subchapter is being computed for a taxable year not beginning after December 31, 1941, by subtract- ing from such sum, if for two or more years of the basis period there was a minus amount, the sum of the minus amounts, exclud- ing the greatest; or "(2) If the tax under this subchapter is being computed for a taxable year beginning after December 31, 1941, by subtracting from such sum the sum of the minus amounts. If the amount used under the preceding sentence for the lowest year is less than 75 per centum of the sum of the plus amounts reduced by the sum of the minus amounts for the other years in the base period divided by three, the amount which shall be used for such lowest year shall be 75 per centum of the amount last ascertained. "(c) By dividing the amount ascertained under subsection (b) by four. "(d) In no case shall the average base period net income be less than zero. In the case of a taxpayer which becomes an acquiring corporation in any taxable year beginning after December 31, 1939, if, on September 11, 1940, and at all times until the taxpayer became an acquiring corporation- "(1) the taxpayer owned not less than 75 per centum of each class of stock of each of the qualified component corporations involved in the transaction in which the taxpayer became an acquiring corporation; or "(2) one of the qualified component corporations involved in the transaction owned not less than 75 per centum of each class of stock of the taxpayer, and of each of the other qualified component corporations involved in the transaction, the average base period net income of the taxpayer shall not be less than (A) the average base period net income of that one of its qualified component corporations involved in the transaction the average base period net income of which is greatest, or (B) the average base period net income of the taxpayer computed without regard to the base period net income of any of its qualified component corporations involved in the transaction. As used in this subsection, the term 'qualified component corporation' means a component corporation which was in existence on the date of the beginning of the taxpayer's base period. "(e) For the purposes of subsection (a) (1) of this section- "(1) If neither the taxpayer corporation nor any of its com- ponent corporations was actually in existence on December 31, 1936, the excess profits net income of each such corporation for each base period year at no time during which any of such cor- porations was actually in existence, shall (except in the case of a corporation which became a component corporation of its acquir- ing corporation before the beginning of the acquiring corpora- tion's first taxable year which began in 1940) be an amount equal to 8 per centum of the excess of- "(A) in the case of any such corporation to which para- graph (2) is not applicable, the daily invested capital of such corporation for the first day of its first taxable year under this subchapter beginning in 1940 over "(B) an amount equal to the same percentage of such daily invested capital as would be applicable under section
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