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deductions for their personal payments of the corporate
employment taxes and interest thereon; the separate legal status
of petitioners and their corporations requires that petitioners’
payments of the corporate employment tax expenses be treated as
capital contributions to the corporations rather than as
deductible payments by petitioners of their own expenses.7
A corporation generally is a separate taxable entity even if
it has only one shareholder who exercises total control over its
affairs. Moline Props., Inc. v. Commissioner, 319 U.S. 436, 439
(1943); Burnet v. Clark, 287 U.S. 410, 415 (1932). The business
of a corporation is separate and distinct from the business of
its shareholders. Deputy v. du Pont, 308 U.S. 488, 494 (1940);
Crook v. Commissioner, 80 T.C. 27, 33 (1983), affd. without
published opinion 747 F.2d 1463 (5th Cir. 1984). A taxpayer is
free to adopt such organization for his affairs as he may choose;
having elected to do business as a corporation, he must accept
7Under sec. 6672, the IRS can collect a portion of unpaid
corporate employment taxes, namely the employees’ shares of
Federal income and FICA taxes reported on Forms 941, from persons
responsible for the nonpayment of these taxes. A “responsible
person” has been deemed to include officers or employees of a
corporation who are under a duty to collect, account for, or pay
over the corporate employment taxes to the IRS. See Commonwealth
Natl. Bank v. United States, 665 F.2d 743, 748 (5th Cir. 1982).
There is no evidence in the record that respondent has made
a claim of sec. 6672 liability against petitioners or that
petitioners made payments of corporate employment taxes under
sec. 6672. In any event we would have no jurisdiction to
consider respondent’s assertion of any such claim. See Wilt v.
Commissioner, 60 T.C. 977, 978 (1973).
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