Nicholas M. Romer - Page 12




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               Apparently recognizing the shortcomings in his documentary             
          evidence, petitioner seeks to overcome them by his own detailed             
          and highly self-serving testimony.  As a preliminary matter, we             
          note that petitioner was not a credible witness.  As previously             
          discussed, he is an experienced C.P.A. and self-professed tax               
          expert who consciously ignored the requirements of the Internal             
          Revenue Code.  He offers many excuses, but no good reason, why              
          his contemporaneous business records so poorly substantiate his             
          claimed deductions, and why in fact he omitted the claimed                  
          deductions from his tax returns, only to assert them in niggling            
          detail years later after being indicted and conceding that he               
          omitted great sums of gross income.8  The explanations petitioner           
          has offered-–e.g., that he was motivated by his desire to avoid             
          detection by various State and Federal authorities who might find           


               7(...continued)                                                        
          Federal Rules of Evidence.  See sec. 7453; Malinowski v.                    
          Commissioner, 71 T.C. 1120, 1125 (1979).  At trial, petitioner              
          was represented by counsel, who was given ample opportunity to              
          respond to respondent’s evidentiary objections and to raise                 
          objections of his own regarding evidentiary matters or any other            
          matter relating to the conduct of the trial.                                
               8 Among petitioner’s many implausible arguments is one that            
          he believed there was no harm in his omitting the gross income              
          because he knew, thanks to his tax expertise, that he would have            
          been entitled to even greater amounts of deductions, if he had              
          claimed them, that would have eliminated any net tax liability              
          and in fact would have produced losses for tax purposes.  We do             
          not believe that petitioner would have consciously foregone                 
          claiming such losses.  In the course of this proceeding, we have            
          observed in petitioner no hint of such largesse toward the fisc.            
          We do observe, however, that petitioner’s continued attempts to             
          exonerate himself with such ludicrous arguments reflect adversely           
          on his credibility.                                                         




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