- 9 -
petitioners received the unreported income as mere conduits
without a claim of right.
A. Mr. Martinez
Mr. Martinez testified that he split the money he received
from the third-party payers with other workers because the
workers “had no formal ID or any papers to cash their money, and
so * * * [I] took the check * * * [myself] and * * * [I] cashed
it for them.” Mr. Martinez provided inconsistent testimony,
however, as to whether the workers worked for him or with him,
the number of workers he paid and the amounts he paid them, and
the amounts he kept for himself. Mr. Martinez also presented no
documentation supporting his alleged division of the money he
received or the amount he reported on his Schedule C-EZ, and he
provided no documentary evidence that he was obligated to divide
the money with other workers.
One of the men who worked with Mr. Martinez during 2001,
Gustav Ortiz (Mr. Ortiz), testified that Mr. Martinez gave him
“about a thousand for the Life job”. Although Mr. Ortiz did not
report the income on a Federal income tax return and did not have
any documentation to support his testimony, we shall accept his
testimony made under oath, and we shall allow Mr. Martinez a
deduction of $1,000 for wages paid to Mr. Ortiz.
Because of Mr. Martinez’s vague and inconsistent testimony
and the lack of credible evidence in the record, we conclude that
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011