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of the documents are dated from August 24, 1999, to August 27,
2003. Of the two remaining undated documents, one shows 5-year
financial projections for 1999 through 2003, and the other is a
photograph of an item from a line of auto care products allegedly
“sold since 1996”. Mr. Weaver’s testimony primarily described
these exhibits and offered no specific details concerning any
activities taking place in 1998. Petitioners therefore would
apparently have the Court deduce, by inference, that because
petitioners claimed $440,034 in expenses for 1998 related to
Shrike Cars that were not otherwise disallowed for lack of
substantiation, an active trade or business was being carried on
during that year.
In addition to this anachronistic difficulty, the content of
the exhibits is problematic. A significant percentage of the
documents are related to random proposals for largely unconnected
product development projects. With the possible exception of
vague testimony from Mr. Weaver that a 2003 proposal had been
“accepted”, the record is devoid of indication that any project
went forward. We thus are unable to determine, beyond surmising
that activities continued somewhere on the nebulous continuum
from “automobile construction” to “marketing”, even the nature of
projects pursued by Shrike Cars in 1998. In the absence of any
evidence directed toward business operations during the
particular year in issue, the Court concludes that petitioners
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