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We understand the foregoing question by petitioners’ counsel to
be asking whether the total rent that JJ & P Farms, Inc., paid to
petitioners during 1995 with respect to petitioners’ 800-head
capacity hog barn (i.e., $44,500) was above, below, or at fair
market value. However, the rent that that company was required
to, and did, pay to petitioners during 1995 with respect to that
barn was not $44,500, but was $21 per head, per rotation of hogs
that petitioners processed through that barn. There is nothing
in the record establishing that $21 per head, per rotation of
hogs that petitioners processed through petitioners’ 800-head
capacity hog barn represented fair market rent for such barn.22
22Assuming arguendo that it were proper for the colloquy
between petitioners’ counsel and Mr. Solvie to have focused on
the total rent that JJ & P Farms, Inc., paid to petitioners
during 1995 with respect to petitioners’ 800-head capacity hog
barn (i.e., $44,500), instead of on the rent of $21 per head, per
rotation of hogs that petitioners processed through that barn, we
are not persuaded by Mr. Solvie’s testimony, which we found to be
vague and ambiguous, that such total rent paid represented fair
market rent. Mr. Solvie’s use of the word “about” as a qualifier
to the phrase “fair market value” raises a serious question in
our mind as to whether Mr. Solvie was testifying that the total
rent that JJ & P Farms, Inc., paid to petitioners during 1995 was
below, at, or above fair market rent. Mr. Solvie’s repeating the
phrase “fair market value” does not clarify but instead compounds
the vagueness and ambiguity of his testimony that such total rent
paid was “about fair market value.” Moreover, we found Mr.
Solvie’s testimony to be general, vague, ambiguous, self-serving,
uncorroborated, and/or internally inconsistent in certain other
material respects. For example, the following exchange took
place during the cross-examination by respondent’s counsel of Mr.
Solvie:
Q But the rent that you received for the new
facility was wholly dependent upon the number of pigs
(continued...)
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