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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.
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