- 13 - gifts in 1989. This testimony is corroborated by bank records reflecting petitioners’ numerous small deposits of cash and checks shortly after their wedding. Petitioner wife also testified that at the time of her marriage in 1989, she had at least $400 in two bank accounts. She testified that her grandmother used funds placed under her guardianship after the death of petitioner wife’s mother to help pay for Itesha’s private Christian schooling. The record also indicates numerous other instances of gifts or loans to petitioners from family and friends. In sum, the 1989 net worth computation is premised on an apples-and-oranges comparison of petitioner husband’s opening net worth (unreliably assumed to be zero) and petitioners’ joint ending net worth, counting petitioners’ joint assets and expenditures to petitioner husband’s disadvantage, while failing to count petitioner wife’s 1989 income–-upon which she has already paid Federal income tax–-or separate assets, which were available to fund petitioners’ joint expenditures. Taxpayers may not avoid the imposition of legally due taxes by concealing facts, but neither may the Commissioner base his determination on a “‘strong underlying element of guesswork.’” Jacobs v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1974-73 (quoting Polizzi v. Commissioner, 265 F.2d 498, 502 (6th Cir. 1959)). Taking into consideration the warnings in Holland v. United States, 348 U.S.Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next
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