- 10 - education; the spouse's involvement in the family's business and financial affairs; the presence of expenditures that appear lavish or unusual when compared to the family's past levels of income, standard of living, and spending patterns; and the culpable spouse's evasiveness and deceit concerning the couple's finances. Stevens v. Commissioner, 872 F.2d at 1505; Flynn v. Commissioner, 93 T.C. 355, 365-366 (1989). Petitioner possessed a high school education and no training in bookkeeping. She was responsible for running the household, paying the personal and family expenses, and maintaining the checkbook for the household account. The money deposited in the household account, beyond that from petitioner's paycheck while she was working, came from the business. For a short period during the years at issue, petitioner assisted her husband in the business by writing checks. She had access to the checkbook for the business account at other times. There is no evidence of any evasiveness or deceit on the part of her husband with respect to the finances of either the family or the business. The family's expenses were modest and the amounts deposited into the household account were in keeping with these expenses. However, the Zimmermans' tax returns reported extremely small amounts of business income, much smaller than the amounts deposited into the household account. In 1988 petitioner wrote checks on that account of some $16,000 and in 1989 wrote checksPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011