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Respondent provided to petitioners the written declaration
of Marlene Mills, a Mellon employee, outside the Standing
Pretrial Order’s minimum time period for the exchange of
documents. That document was not in existence until October 7,
2004, and accordingly, it could not be exchanged within the
Court’s requirement of 14 days before the trial session. The
Court does not find that exclusion of the declaration is proper
considering the declaration only replaced the previous defective
declaration of Latoshia Desir, another Mellon employee.
Ms. Desir’s declaration, which was provided to petitioners
in compliance with the Court’s rule on document exchanges prior
to trial, did not comply with Fed. R. Evid. 902(11); therefore,
respondent offered another declaration, that of Ms. Mills,
meeting the requirements of Fed. R. Evid. 902(11). The records
accompanying Ms. Mills’s declaration contained the same content
as Ms. Desir’s declaration. Petitioners argue that the new
records reflected a change in one of respondent’s arguments, but
the Court is convinced that petitioners were sufficiently aware
of this argument in advance since it was referenced in
petitioners’ own pretrial memorandum. Additionally, petitioners
objected to the admission of Form 1099-B in the Stipulation of
Facts, in turn, acknowledging that respondent was seeking to
introduce Form 1099-B as evidence of the $18,037.50 amount from
Principal Life Insurance Company. See Rodriguez v. Commissioner,
T.C. Memo. 2005-12. Consequently, the Court believes that
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