- 13 - 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.Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
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