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Despite our concluding, supra, that petitioners satisfied
their intitial burden of proof, we find several problems with
petitioners' claim of time spent participating in the rental of
their Hawaiian condominiums. Cf. Harrison v. Commissioner, supra.
First, petitioners' claim of 150 hours of work during their
Hawaiian "working vacation" is implausible. Assuming petitioners
actually stayed for 14 days, their claim would amount to an average
of 10.7 hours of work per day, which was apparently performed only
by Mr. Pohoski because no testimony presented ever referred to work
performed by Mrs. Pohoski while in Hawaii. Yet there was never any
discussion of breaks for meals, travel, or leisure time with the
family--all of which certainly occurred.
Second, the breakdown of time spent on telephone calls from
prospective tenants, travel agent contacts, and e-mail responses to
prospective tenants is suspicious. Petitioners allocate the total
time evenly between the Maui and Molokai condos, yet they clearly
had much more success in renting the Maui condo than the Molokai
condo. We find it unlikely that an equal amount of time was spent
with regard to each condominium, and we find that less time was
spent with respect to the Molokai condo.
Third, we find the time spent with respect to checking and
responding to e-mail excessive. Mr. Pohoski's testimony suggested
many more telephone calls than e-mail responses, yet much more time
was allocated to checking and responding to his e-mail than calling
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