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as to whether Mrs. Ruckman (or Mr. Ruckman) was an employee of
Ruckman, Inc., whom the corporation had the right to direct and
control in some meaningful sense, we believe the available
evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that no
employment relationship existed between Ruckman, Inc., and either
petitioner insofar as the provision of dispatch services was
concerned.7 We note first that there was no written contract of
employment between Ruckman, Inc., and either petitioner from
which we might discern control, and the available extrinsic
evidence indicates that Ruckman, Inc., did not have control.
Ruckman, Inc., did not pay any salary or wages to either
petitioner with respect to the dispatch services or otherwise.
Payment for the dispatch services was made by checks payable to
Mrs. Ruckman personally, and these checks were deposited into
petitioners' personal banking account, not the corporate account.
Thus, at no point did Ruckman, Inc., have custody or control of
the remuneration for the dispatch services. Cf. Gordon v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1993-10 (checks issued to taxpayer
7We note that the focus of our analysis in Leavell v.
Commissioner, 104 T.C. 140 (1995), was whether an employment
relationship existed between the service provider taxpayer and
the service recipient, on the theory that only a service provider
who is an independent contractor with respect to the service
recipient retains the right to grant control over his services to
an intermediate entity. Id. at 149-150. In the instant case,
however, it has not been argued, nor do we believe there is any
evidence to suggest, that either petitioner was an employee of
Bennett Logging or Happy Trucking, the recipients of the dispatch
services. Thus, petitioners retained the capacity to grant
control of their dispatch services to Ruckman, Inc., and our
analysis concerns whether they did so under the two-part test.
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