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business formerly operated as Onex [Farms]”, without explanation
and contrary to petitioner’s description of the event as little
more than a name change, Lever owned 50 percent, rather than
33-1/3 percent, of Titan. We can only assume that this occurred
because, consistent with Dr. Chambers’s consternation over the
distribution of Archimedes’s assets, petitioner and Dr. Chambers
agreed that, however the deal was structured, each should have,
directly or indirectly, an equal share in the Georgia farm owned
first by Onex Farms and subsequently by Titan.
Petitioner’s conduct, in surrendering the distributed
partnership interest while planning and engaging in a series of
transactions that ultimately led to the Georgia farm’s being
held by an entity owned equally by himself and Dr. Chambers,
provides strong support for the conclusion that petitioner and
Dr. Chambers in fact had an agreement or understanding, express
or implied, that they would be equal owners of the Georgia farm,
regardless of its formal ownership structure at the entity level.
Set against this background, we think it is unnecessary to
apply the principles used to determine a taxpayer’s entitlement
to a deduction for an abandonment loss as articulated in Citron
v. Commissioner, supra, and similar cases, because we find that,
for Federal income tax purposes, petitioner did not actually
abandon the distributed partnership interest as he claims. See
Tsakopoulos v. Commissioner, supra (citing Richardson v. McNulty,
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