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166-167 (1951). In order to carry his burden, petitioner must
establish both the existence of a theft within the meaning of
section 165 and the amount of the loss. See Elliott v. Commis-
sioner, 40 T.C. 304, 311 (1963).
In order to satisfy his burden to substantiate the 1993
claimed theft loss, petitioner relies on his self-serving testi-
mony, on which we are unwilling to rely, and on a police report
that was prepared by Officer Coffey, who was assigned to investi-
gate the 1991 purported theft. Officer Coffey prepared that
report largely on the basis of information provided by petitioner
and/or Ms. Weber. Attachments to the police report that were
prepared by petitioner and/or Ms. Weber listed the items that
were purportedly stolen from petitioner and assigned a monetary
value to each of those items. Officer Coffey recommended that
the case “be closed due to the time laps [sic] and no leads to
follow up on.” We find that the police report and the attach-
ments thereto constitute for the most part nothing more than a
mere recitation of the factual allegations of petitioner and/or
Ms. Weber, who was not a witness at the trial in this case, with
respect to the 1991 purported theft. We are unwilling to rely on
the police report and the attachments thereto as establishing
either that the 1991 purported theft occurred or that petitioner
had any loss for 1993 under section 165 from that purported
theft, let alone a loss therefrom in the amount claimed by
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