- 20 -
“agent” of both HEH and Mercury Solar PTO, Sparkman was authorized
to act as “President” of each purported entity and to operate each
“to the same extent as if he were the owner.” Insofar as the
record reveals, he did just that. There is no evidence that, in
the brief interlude between purportedly receiving the Mercury
Solar business from Sparkman and retransferring it to Mercury
Solar PTO, HEH did anything other than (as connoted by its name)
hold the Mercury Solar business for Sparkman, who continued to run
it as he always had.20 As far as the evidence shows, nothing much
changed when the Mercury Solar business purportedly was
transferred from HEH to Mercury Solar PTO. Porter (Sparkman’s ex-
spouse), who in 1998 was named “trustee” of Mercury Solar PTO,
testified that Sparkman, as “agent” of Mercury Solar PTO, made the
“operational decisions” during 1996-2000, “except for when * * *
Mr. Myron Thompson was the operational operation manager.”
Thompson’s testimony shows, however, that he regarded the Mercury
20 In the trial of Hvidding v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo.
2003-151, Sparkman testified that HEH had no employees “other
than the trustees if those are considered employees”. In the
trial of Richter v. Commissioner, supra, Joseph John Miskowiec,
who was a solar energy salesman for the Mercury Solar business,
testified that Sparkman was the “overall supervisor” at HEH. But
since, by Sparkman’s own testimony, HEH had no employees to
supervise, we surmise that Sparkman “supervised” the Mercury
Solar business that HEH purported to hold.
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