- 15 -
house but also the house furnishings and the art collection, have
no apparent significance in the determination of whether
petitioner received any benefit from the understatement.
Another factor to be considered is whether the spouses have
been divorced. Flynn v. Commissioner, supra at 367; sec. 1.6013-
5(b), Income Tax Regs. Given the couple's uneasy relationship
throughout their marriage, we do not attach particular
significance to the fact that they have remained together.
Petitioner characterized her marriage as not one "made in
heaven", and testified that because of her chronic health
problem, which appears to have persisted throughout most of her
adult life, she "couldn't think of leaving, because how was I
going to take care of myself?" Petitioner first discovered in
1984 that Harvey had been "sheltering" his income in the relevant
years. Other recent cases have considered the impact and
reliability of a spouse's promise to pay any tax deficiencies
resulting from grossly erroneous items. See, e.g., Friedman v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1995-576 (on remand from 53 F.3d 523);
Stiteler v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1995-279; Foley v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1995-16. But in the instant case the
record only reveals a struggle by both spouses to pay
unidentified Federal tax bills, with Arlene contributing $34,000
at one point from money received from her father, and the couple
selling their comfortable home to raise cash with which to pay
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