George P. Brown - Page 6

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          estimate may be made.  Vanicek v. Commissioner, 85 T.C. 731, 743            
          (1985).                                                                     
               Petitioner compiled a list of items that were destroyed by             
          hurricane Andrew.  The list contains petitioner's own estimates             
          of their values.  At trial, petitioner testified that several of            
          the items on the list were owned by his landlord.  In addition,             
          he admitted that much of his property was several years old when            
          it was destroyed.  Finally, he did not include on the list the              
          automobiles claimed on his amended return as a loss.  After                 
          reviewing petitioner's list and considering his testimony, we               
          estimate petitioner's loss from hurricane Andrew to be $7,062.              
               After taking into account the section 165(h) limitations,              
          petitioner's allowable casualty loss deduction is $1,840.  Since            
          petitioner has not claimed any other itemized deductions, we hold           
          that he is only entitled to the standard deduction for an                   
          individual filing as married filing separate, which is greater              
          than his allowable casualty loss deduction.                                 
               To reflect the foregoing,                                              


                                                  Decision will be entered            
                                             for respondent.                          











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