-20-
organized in keeping track of his expenditures, his efforts to
make a financial success of his writing activity show a profit
objective.
The fact that petitioner did not seek expert advice on how
to start or maintain a business as a fiction writer does weigh
against his argument that he carried on the activity in a
businesslike manner. While petitioner had writing skills, it
appears that they were mainly in the technical field of budget
analysis. However, it is important to consider that petitioner
used his writing skills extensively in his job at Treasury, where
he worked for more than 30 years. Moreover, by virtue of his job
assignments and performance rating, petitioner was led to believe
that writing was his strong point. Although his success at
Treasury is not a reasonable predictor of his success as a
fiction writer, his prior writing experience is not unrelated to
his anticipated performance as a writer in another field. We
also note that petitioner has a bachelor's degree in marketing
and advertising, which suggests that he has more than a basic
familiarity with the business side of his writing activity. It
is apparent from the record that petitioner took great interest
in the commercial aspects of his endeavor.
The third factor in the regulations focuses on the time and
effort expended by the taxpayer in carrying on the activity.
There is little question that, during the years at issue,
Page: Previous 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011