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to establish the credibility of his testimony. See Smith v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1998-33.
In this case, petitioner failed to take any steps to
recreate his records, and he intentionally avoided communications
with respondent. Although petitioner could have reconstructed at
least some of his expenses if he had made a good faith effort to
do so, petitioner did not make a meaningful attempt to contact
third parties who might have been able to verify the nature and
amount of his Schedule C expenses and/or provide copies of
invoices and receipts for such expenses. At trial, petitioner
did not produce any receipts, invoices, or other credible
evidence, including third-party testimony, to support his
Schedule C expense deductions. Additionally, although petitioner
attempted to estimate his expenses at trial at the prompting of
this Court,5 his recollection was too vague and imprecise for the
Court to make a reasonable estimate. See, e.g., Schaefer v.
5For example, petitioner testified that he owned and
operated five trucks yet he took no steps to produce the records
necessary to verify that he owned five trucks during 2000 or his
basis in the vehicles. He did not obtain duplicate records from
his insurance company to substantiate his insurance payments. He
made no effort to reconstruct his fuel receipts by contacting the
companies from which he purchased fuel, and he did not call any
witnesses who might have verified that he purchased fuel during
2000. Although petitioner testified that he paid commissions to
brokers for referrals during 2000, he could not identify how much
he paid the brokers, and he did not call any of the brokers as
witnesses. He did not attempt to get duplicate copies of the
checks he used to pay the commissions from his bank. He did not
even produce a duplicate receipt for the union dues he testified
he paid.
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