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and 35-percent cotton garment for its durability. Petitioner’s
corporate publication explains that its switch to a 65-percent
polyester and 35-percent cotton blend fabric allowed it to
provide colorful and attractive apparel. Again, the physical
life of the garment does not determine the useful life of the
garment. Ames v. Commissioner, 626 F.2d 693, 695-696 (9th Cir.
1980), affg. T.C. Memo. 1977-249; Elec. & Neon, Inc. v.
Commissioner, 56 T.C. at 1334.
Respondent relies on his expert report that concludes that
the “average service life” of petitioner’s garments and dust
control items is greater than 1 year. The conclusions are based
on a random statistical sample consisting of garments and dust
control items examined during a visit to petitioner’s facilities
in 2001. The population for the statistical sample consisted of
all items located at three of petitioner’s facilities on the day
of the visit. The statistical sample taken was based on the
assumption that the ages of the items within each facility were
randomly shuffled. Items missing tags or tags with dates that
were too worn to read were removed from the sample.
Using the data collected, estimates of the mean and median
age were determined for each category based on a 95-percent
confidence interval. The median age of the sample of mats from
the active area of the Cerritos facility was 641 days. The
median age of the sample of industrial garments from the active
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