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acknowledged that he did not file any Federal income tax returns
and provided his reasons for not meeting with the agent or filing
returns. In this regard, tax protester arguments, even though
meritless and frivolous, without more, do not necessarily amount
to fraud. Kotmair v. Commissioner, 86 T.C. 1253, 1262 (1986).4
Petitioner's failure to cooperate here was to his own detriment.
Respondent had received Forms 1099 from the company(ies) that had
paid petitioner for harvested timber in each year. Petitioner,
by his failure to come forward, however, did not obtain the
benefit of the deductions to which he was entitled in connection
with the harvesting of timber. His failure to cooperate did not
keep respondent from being able to determine his income or
receipts.
At trial, petitioner admitted that he knew Melton was not an
accountant or an attorney experienced in tax matters, but he
believed Melton's advice that he did not owe tax. Petitioner is
not well versed in tax and financial matters and has only limited
formal education. We cannot say that his holding to so-called
protester tenets was with intent to defraud or misrepresent. In
4 We stated in Kotmair v. Commissioner,86 T.C. 1253, 1262
(1986) that the taxpayer's protester arguments "may have been
meritless, frivolous, wrongheaded, and even stupid, but we cannot
hold that they amounted to fraud, without something more. Were
we to do so, every failure-to-file protester case would be
automatically converted into a fraud case."
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