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Typically, the daily planner entry includes a dollar amount
allegedly representing the cost of renting the room in which the
seminar was held. Petitioners have furnished no evidence that
any of those alleged rental costs were in fact incurred: No
canceled checks, no receipts, no inclusion in the NationsBank
VISA card summary. We find that, having offered no evidence of
actual payment, petitioners have failed to sustain their burden
of establishing that they are entitled to a rental expense
deduction. See Hyde v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1992-419 ("This
Court is not bound to accept the unverified, undocumented
testimony of petitioner”), affd. without published opinion 9 F.3d
112 (7th Cir. 1993). By not offering independent evidence that
the seminars even took place (e.g., brochures, attendance lists,
or the testimony of one or more attendees), petitioners have
failed even to furnish a basis for the Court to estimate, under
the authority of Cohan v. Commissioner, 39 F.2d 540 (2d Cir.
1930), the amount allowable as rental expense. As we stated in
Hyde v. Commissioner, supra:
However, in order to make an estimation, ‘there [must]
be sufficient evidence to satisfy the trier that at
least the amount allowed in the estimate was in fact
spent or incurred for the stated purpose’. Williams v.
United States, 245 F.2d 559, 560 (5th Cir. 1957).
Until the trier has that assurance from the record,
relief to the taxpayer would be “unguided largesse”.
Id.
Petitioners have failed to establish that they are entitled
to any deduction for rental expense.
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