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Where the taxpayer simply assigns his or her lifetime
services and income earned from the performance of those
services, and the taxpayer rather than the trust has the ultimate
direction and control over the earning of the compensation, the
conveyance is ineffective to shift the tax burden from the
taxpayer to the trust. Vnuk v. Commissioner, supra at 1320;
Wesenberg v. Commissioner, 69 T.C. at 1010-1011; see also Holman
v. United States, 728 F.2d at 464; O’Donnell v. Commissioner, 726
F.2d at 681; Hanson v. Commissioner, 696 F.2d at 1234.
Like the taxpayers in the cited cases, petitioners were not
bona fide servants of the OMK Company Trust because the trust had
no right to supervise their employment or determine the resulting
income or benefit. The purported conveyance of petitioners’
lifetime services to the trust did not create a legal obligation
because petitioners were on both sides of the transaction, as
employees and as trustees, leaving no one to enforce the
obligation. See Schulz v. Commissioner, supra at 494.
Similarly, the contracts for services entered into by the
OMK Company Trust and P.I. Ministries concern the services of the
individual having control over P.I. Ministries as its chief
executive officer and over the trust as trustee. Neither the OMK
Company Trust nor P.I. Ministries could be said to have had
control of petitioners’ activities. See Stoecklin v.
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