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primarily through the efforts of petitioners via their contacts
with Prudential, Travelers, and the Pritzker family.
In Rubin v. Commissioner, supra, we found that the income
was properly taxable to the individual who performed the services
for which payment was made where the individual was not
contractually bound to (and in fact did not) render services
exclusively to a personal service corporation. In these cases,
petitioners were not contractually bound to, nor did they render
services for, the corporations.
Ballard, Lisle, and Kanter were not employees of any of the
corporations or entities involved in the transactions at issue.
Ballard and Lisle were full-time employees of Prudential,
Travelers, or Goldman-Sachs. Kanter was a self-employed
attorney.
Kanter was not an agent of the corporations. In fact, there
is evidence that Kanter in some instances held himself out to
members of the Five (in particular Schaffel) as Ballard's and
Lisle's agent, referring to them as his "associates". Ballard
and Lisle did not claim that they were agents of IRA or any other
entity (except to justify the payment Ballard received as a
director's fee from IRA while denying he was ever a director).
We have previously discussed the failure of petitioners and
other parties to the transactions to recognize the separate
existence of the corporations. None of the Five recognized any
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