Donald L. Walford - Page 18

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               On brief, petitioner implies that the relevant inquiry is              
          whether he had the requisite profit objective.  As explained                
          earlier, in the partnership context, the determination of profit            
          objective is made at the partnership level.  Cannon v.                      
          Commissioner, 949 F.2d at 349; Hulter v. Commissioner, 91 T.C. at           
          393; Brannen v. Commissioner, 78 T.C. at 505.  However, the                 
          result would be the same even if the profit objective was                   
          examined from petitioner’s standpoint.  The evidence in the                 
          record reflects that petitioner, an experienced investor, did not           
          take the time to do an independent investigation of the                     
          assumptions contained in the PPM or otherwise take any action to            
          verify the profitability of the EMS-related activity.  The                  
          parties stipulated that at the time of his investment in Sav-               
          Fuel, petitioner had no knowledge of the partnership other than             
          the information he obtained from review of the PPM.  At trial,              
          petitioner admitted that he did not perform an independent                  
          valuation analysis of the EMS until after he learned that                   
          respondent had disallowed his claimed deductions.  On the basis             
          of petitioner’s failure to undertake these steps, we find it                
          implausible that he had the dominant or primary objective of                
          making a profit.                                                            
               D.   Present Value Analysis                                            
               Although we have already found that Sav-Fuel was not engaged           
          in the EMS-related activity for profit and therefore petitioner             






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