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preoccupation with other activities during 1997, including his 6-
month stint working as an independent contractor for Coast
Personnel Services and his 8-week trip to the east coast. These
excuses for petitioner’s failure to receive income from the
handyman and landscaping activity simply are not credible.
Given the relative simplicity of the activity and the fact
that petitioner has conducted it for several years, there is no
plausible explanation why petitioner’s total expenses are three
times his gross receipts if he was truly engaged in the activity
for profit. On this record, we conclude that petitioner’s
handyman activity during 1997 was not engaged in for profit
within the meaning of section 183. Consequently deductions from
the handyman activity are limited to the $370 income reported
from that activity.
B. Writing Activity
Petitioner’s writing activity is concerned entirely with an
8-week cross-country trip he took with his wife in the spring and
summer of 1997. Petitioner claims that he is a professional
writer, planned this trip to conduct research for a series of
travel articles, particularly concerning the Civil War, and kept
receipts and records showing his expenses of more than $12,000.
Petitioner is not trained as a professional writer. Prior
to 1997, he had dabbled at writing by preparing film and theater
reviews and submitting them to local newspapers for publication.
He was paid $50 for each of these occasional pieces. Petitioner
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