Mark N. and Marla R. Kantor - Page 18

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            return for 1985, frequent writing of checks to cash, and                                  
            maintenance of an upper-middle-class lifestyle, taken together,                           
            prove his specific intent to evade the payment of taxes in the                            
            years in issue.  We are not convinced, and we hold to the                                 
            contrary.                                                                                 
                  The only "badge of fraud" found in the record is Mark's                             
            failure to file income tax returns in each of the years 1981 to                           
            1985.  Bradford v. Commissioner, 796 F.2d at 307-308.  Mark knew                          
            he had the obligation to do so; he had filed petitioners' 1980                            
            joint tax return in 1981.  Rowlee v. Commissioner, 80 T.C. at                             
            1125.  Mark has argued that his drug abuse was the root cause of                          
            his failure to file, an argument contradicted to some extent by                           
            his filing of the 1980 tax return in 1981, at a time when he                              
            already was heavily abusing drugs.  However, the record indicates                         
            that Mark's erratic behavior during 1980 through 1985, created                            
            ever increasing chaos in petitioners' personal lives.  Marla                              
            testified that the failure to file their tax returns from 1982 to                         
            1986 was a direct byproduct of that chaos.                                                
                  In 1989, Mark pleaded guilty to a charge that he willfully                          
            failed to file his tax return in 1985.  Sec. 7203.  Such a                                
            conviction, without more, does not constitute clear and                                   
            convincing evidence of fraud for that year, Beaver v.                                     
            Commissioner, 55 T.C. at 93; Kotmair v. Commissioner, 86 T.C.                             
            1253, 1260-1261 (1986); see also McCullough v. Commissioner, T.C.                         
            Memo. 1993-70, although it may be highly persuasive evidence of                           




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