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* * Federal income taxes". Petitioners do not dispute that the
deduction of $9,284 is not allowable. The deduction is clearly
prohibited by statute, and petitioner was aware that Federal
income taxes cannot be deducted.
"Negligence is a lack of due care or the failure to do what
a reasonable and ordinarily prudent person would do under the
circumstances." Freytag v. Commissioner, 89 T.C. 849, 887 (1987)
(quoting Marcello v. Commissioner, 380 F.2d 499, 506 (5th Cir.
1967), affg. on this issue 43 T.C. 168 (1964) and T.C. Memo.
1964-299, cert. denied 389 U.S. 1004 (1968)), affd. 904 F.2d 1011
(5th Cir. 1990), affd. on other grounds 501 U.S. 868 (1991). The
question then is whether petitioner has established that his
conduct meets the reasonable or prudent person standard. See
Rule 142(a); see also Freytag v. Commissioner, 89 T.C. at 887.
Petitioner argues that the deduction was the result of a
reasonable mistake caused by an employee who erroneously posted
the amount of the check(s) to pay Federal income taxes to the
"payroll" account. We may agree that the posting mistake of the
employee was understandable, but we have difficulty with
petitioner's explanation. Petitioner either prepared or directly
supervised the preparation of the 1994 tax return. He is an
accountant, and a large part of his business related to tax
matters. The $9,284 in income taxes deducted as "payroll" taxes
constitutes approximately 17 percent of the taxable income of the
accounting practice. Moreover, it represents 53 percent of the
deduction claimed for "payroll" taxes. These are not
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