"One of the basic income tax planning concepts is to defer income into the next tax year if possible. "
My understanding of the tax law is that the larger one's income, the larger one's tax bill is as a percent. Accordingly, spreading income over several years can be more desirable often times than having a large income in one year. Also, more years allows more deductions to offset the income. Sure, Rip could have easily pushed this transaction into 2005, and thereby defered it to the following year. However, if he, like me, is expecting even larger gains and income in '05 than in '04, he may be better off splitting his gains over two years than combining them in '05.