- 16 - avoid the negligence penalty, because petitioner failed to show that his father had any expertise in tax matters. See Allen v. Commissioner, 925 F.2d 348, 353-354 (9th Cir. 1991), affg. 92 T.C. 1 (1989). Failure to keep adequate records is some evidence of negligence. Marcello v. Commissioner, supra at 507; Magnon v. Commissioner, 73 T.C. 980, 1008 (1980). Petitioner's records were incomplete and in disarray. At trial, petitioner offered cancelled checks with few of the corresponding receipts. These records provided very little, if any, indication of how the cancelled checks related to the Harwichport property. For example, the cancelled checks payable to the oil companies did not indicate the items purchased, the dates of purchase, or where the transactions took place. The testimony of petitioner and his father gave the distinct impression that petitioner kept no contemporaneous records of his expenses. Petitioner's testimony that he advertised no property in the New York Times other than the Harwichport property was incorrect. Petitioner deducted items such as clock repair and then offered nothing at trial that related the clock to the Harwichport property. We conclude that the understatement is attributable to negligence. We have addressed the items still in dispute that we can discern from the record. However, the record and the briefs in this case leave much to be desired. If items remain, we expectPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next
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