Fred and Yvonne Michael - Page 7

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          tax.  The Commissioner determined that petitioner was not an                
          employee during 1981 and 1982 but was instead an independent                
          contractor.  Following this determination by the Commissioner,              
          petitioner paid, in 1991, deficiencies in self-employment tax for           
          1981 and 1982 and interest on those liabilities.                            
               As indicated above, the Court of Appeals for the Tenth                 
          Circuit, to which an appeal in this case would lie, held in                 
          Commissioner v. Polk, supra, that interest paid by an individual            
          taxpayer on an income tax deficiency was deductible as an                   
          ordinary and necessary expense where the deficiency resulted from           
          the taxpayer's understatement of his business income.  However,             
          the facts of Polk are distinguishable from the facts herein.  The           
          taxpayer in Polk raised and produced livestock and used an inven-           
          tory accounting method that required him to value his livestock             
          yearly.  The Court of Appeals stated that, because properly                 
          valuing livestock is not an exact science, the taxpayer's under-            
          reporting of income arose because of the nature of his business             
          and is "ordinarily and necessarily to be expected."  Commissioner           
          v. Polk, supra at 603.  Thus, the interest on the deficiency was            
          held to be an ordinary and necessary business expense.  Id.                 
               Unlike the taxpayer in Polk, here petitioner has not made a            
          showing that the part of the 1981 and 1982 income tax deficien-             
          cies resulting from his failure to pay self-employment tax, and             
          on which he paid interest, arose as a normal or usual incident of           
          his business as a furniture lumper.  Petitioners argue that it is           




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