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Consequently, petitioner is not entitled to claim his daughter as
a dependent for 1990.3
With respect to petitioner's claim that he is entitled to a
dependency exemption for his mother in 1991, petitioner must
establish that he provided over half of her support for the year.
Petitioner presented no documentary evidence and only vague oral
testimony on this issue. Furthermore, the record indicates that
Ms. Baker received Federal and State Government support, and
resided with petitioner's sister for 4 months during the year.
Petitioner has not met his burden of proving that he provided
more than half of the support for his mother. Therefore, we
sustain respondent on this issue.
Filing Status in 19914
We now address the question of whether petitioner is
entitled to head-of-household filing status for 1991. Based upon
3 Respondent first raised this issue in an amended answer.
As such, respondent bears the burden of proof on this issue.
Rule 142(a). Nevertheless, the facts in the record are clear
that petitioner is not entitled to the dependency exemption.
Accordingly, the burden of proof does not play a role with
respect to this issue.
4 Petitioner claimed head-of-household filing status on his
1991 return. In the notice of deficiency, respondent determined
that petitioner, because he improperly claimed his daughter as a
dependent, was not entitled to head-of-household filing status.
Petitioner appears to have conceded both the dependency and
filing status issues in his pretrial memorandum, and neither
party mentioned the issue during trial. Under sec.
2(b)(1)(A)(i), however, the issue of whether a parent may claim
an unmarried son or daughter as a dependent is not determinative
of whether that parent is entitled to head-of-household filing
status. Given that petitioner is pro se, we do not accept his
apparent concession, which was based upon respondent's erroneous
legal analysis.
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