- 29 - v. Commissioner. As this Court stated in Dowling v. Commissioner, supra: The rule regularly applied in such circumstances is that where a ticket on a lottery is purchased in the name of one of two persons and they agree prior to the drawing to share any winnings, each person is taxable only upon his agreed share provided that the nominal owner in fact divides the proceeds in accordance with their agreement, even though the agreement be void and unenforce- able. * * * [Dowling v. Commissioner, supra (citations omitted).] The facts in this case are that Mrs. Winkler did not normally play games of chance, and she never purchased Lotto tickets other than the family tickets purchased in the presence of other family members. She purchased the winning Lotto ticket as one of three "family tickets" on March 4, 1989, while she was with her daughter, Charlotte. She took the tickets home and placed them in a glass bowl in the china cupboard, as was customary for family tickets. Based upon the record in this case, we find that Mrs. Winkler purchased the winning Lotto ticket on behalf of the family partnership and not as her sole property. In making this finding, we are mindful of Mrs. Winkler's gift tax return in which she took the position that she made gifts to her children of the value of the ticket prior to the time it was determined to be the winner (i.e., $.10 to each child). However, we accept Mrs. Winkler's testimony,Page: Previous 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 Next
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