- 33 -- 33 - petitioners' accounts were made during the years at issue.21 However, petitioners did not attempt to introduce those documents into evidence. Nor did they proffer as a witness their accoun- tant, Mr. Bernard, who purportedly assisted petitioners with the preparation of those schedules. On the record before us, we find that during 1989 and 1990 petitioners made payments to, or on behalf of, K & H in the amounts of $481,051.62 and $56,155.40, respectively. We further find on that record that the aggregate amount of deposits into petitioners' accounts during 1989 and 1990 of K & H's and Ms. Velilla's funds exceeded the payments that petitioners made to, or on behalf of, K & H and Ms. Velilla during each of those years by $90,666.35 and $60,168.06, respectively. With respect to the second dispute between the parties as to whether the deposits that were not returned are includible in 21 Petitioners claim that certain other records and books, which related to petitioner's sole proprietorship and petitioners' other financial activities during the years at issue and which would have assisted them in preparing petitioners' schedules of expenses and petitioners' schedules of deposits, were acciden- tally discarded during 1991 and that they had difficulty in obtaining certain bank records from Washington Federal that would have assisted them in preparing those schedules. Assuming arguendo that petitioners' books and records were, in fact, accidentally discarded and that they had difficulty in obtaining certain records from Washington Federal, petitioners would still have to satisfy their burden of proof. See Malinowski v. Commis- sioner, 71 T.C. 1120, 1125 (1979). Under such circumstances, petitioners would be able to meet that burden by presenting reliable secondary evidence. Id. As stated above, we did not find petitioners' schedules of expenses or Ms. Harp's testimony regarding those schedules to be reliable.Page: Previous 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Next
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