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does not shift merely because his records are unintentionally
lost, whether by petitioner, [or] the Government * * *. Instead,
the type of evidence that may be offered to establish a fact is
altered."
The loss of tax records does not leave a taxpayer helpless
in meeting his substantiation burden. In general, when a
taxpayer's records have been lost or destroyed through
circumstances beyond his control, he is entitled to substantiate
the deductions by reconstructing his expenditures through other
credible evidence. American Police & Fire Found., Inc. v.
Commissioner, supra; Malinowski v. Commissioner, 71 T.C. 1120,
1125 (1979); Cook v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1991-590.
Pursuant to a search warrant, special agents of the IRS were
authorized to search Morris' offices and to seize certain
records. Consequently, some of petitioners' records were seized
by the IRS, although it is unclear whether, and to what extent
the seized documents included petitioners' 1989 tax records.
Apparently, Morris' office was extremely disorganized, and
several boxes and file cabinets containing records were not
seized. However, there is no information as to whether
petitioners' 1989 tax records were left in Morris' office. Based
on the record, we find that petitioner mailed his tax records
from 1988 through 1991 to Morris, some of those records were
seized pursuant to the execution of a search warrant, all seized
records identified as belonging to petitioners were returned to
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