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using Ruckman, Inc.'s facilities.11 Mrs. Ruckman testified that
she did not consider it significant that payment checks and Forms
1099 with respect to dispatch services were issued to her
personally rather than to Ruckman, Inc., in particular because
the payments were being reported as income of their corporation,
and passed through to them. Although petitioners may have some
frustration with the formalities here, the fact remains that the
corporation--which is, itself, a mere legal fiction--never had
even transitory control of the funds that petitioners would have
us attribute to it. Moreover, there are more than formalities at
stake here. By treating the payments for dispatch services as
earned by their corporation, which paid them no salaries,
petitioners treated income that was from their personal services
as subject to neither employment nor self-employment taxes. On
the basis of the evidence, we conclude that the income from
dispatch services is not attributable to Ruckman, Inc.
Respondent determined that the dispatch income was earned by
Mrs. Ruckman personally. Petitioners allege error because the
dispatch services were not all rendered solely by Mrs. Ruckman.
Although we have found that Mr. Ruckman performed a portion of
the dispatch services, we do not believe this fact demonstrates
11Petitioners' argument that the dispatch services were
performed using the corporation's facilities boils down to the
claim that the corporation's office, a spare room in their
residence, and the corporation's office equipment were used.
There is no evidence, and we very much doubt, that Ruckman, Inc.,
held title to petitioners' residence. There is likewise no
evidence of the ownership of the office equipment.
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