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Petitioners argue that Stan Lee used this "better data" and
computed Hamalee's gross profit percentages at the amounts that
petitioners ask us to find. We are unpersuaded. In addition to
the fact that petitioners have failed to convince us that
respondent's method of computation was less accurate than
petitioners' "better method", we bear in mind that Hamalee's cash
sales accounted for a large portion of its total sales and that
most of Hamalee's cash sale invoices were destroyed. Thus, even
if we were to agree with petitioners that the use of Hamalee's
actual data was the better method for computing its gross profit
percentages, we could not have applied the "better method" in the
case at hand because the record contains insufficient data.
We also were not impressed with the presentation of Stan
Lee, and we view most of his conclusions to be unpersuasive.
His testimony and report lacked coherence, and they were not
helpful to the Court. His conclusions were partially based on
Hamalee's sales invoices, which did not include the ones that
were destroyed, and he reviewed only a fraction of the already
incomplete records to arrive at his conclusions. We need not
follow an expert's conclusions that are contrary to our better
judgment, see, e.g., Helvering v. National Grocery Co., 304 U.S.
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