- 14 -
omitted from petitioner's returns. United States v. Merrick, 464
F.2d 1087, 1092 (10th Cir. 1972). In this case, where petitioner
has failed to keep the required records, respondent was justified
in determining petitioner's tax liabilities for the years at
issue by this method. Parrish v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1997-
474; McManus v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1972-200, affd. without
published opinion 498 F.2d 1399 (4th Cir. 1973).
Petitioner testified at trial that all of the money actually
belonged to two men, "Cos" and "Bro", who gave him living
expenses and drugs as gifts in appreciation of his renting the
boxes and depositing the money into the boxes on their behalf.
Petitioner estimated the value of these gifts was $48,900 in
1987, and $55,600 in 1988. Petitioner testified that when Cos
and Bro needed to contact him they would beep him on his
electronic pager. Petitioner testified that the last time he had
contact with Cos and Bro was in 1988 when they gave him phony
identification in the name of Robert Morrison and the attache
case full of cash to deposit in the Univault box. Petitioner did
not call Cos and Bro as witnesses or produce any other evidence
that could verify his story.
Petitioner relies on only his testimony to carry the burden
of proving the source of the bundles of cash. Thus, the issue is
one of credibility wherein we must determine the extent to which
the proffered testimony is believable. See Schad v.
Commissioner, supra at 620.
Page: Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011