- 21 - the large deductions contained in the return. The return was prepared by a professional C.P.A., and petitioner had no reason to question its correctness. See Price v. Commissioner, 887 F.2d at 963; Shea v. Commissioner, 780 F.2d 561, 566 (6th Cir. 1986), affg. in part and revg. in part T.C. Memo. 1984-310; Padgett v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1987-130 (noting the complexity of the tax information and concluding that neither the spouse nor “any reasonable person under her circumstances” could have analyzed the transactions without “a sophistication in tax return preparation which she did not have * * * and should not be expected to have”). Further, petitioner has no background in options trading. Even if she had reviewed the return, a large trading loss would not have raised a red flag because the nature of her husband’s option trading business was to lose and gain millions of dollars at a time. Respondent argues that petitioner had a duty to inquire because the Campbells paid no tax for 1983 and received a refund of $314,229. We disagree. Because of the complexity of the transactions at issue and the fact that Mr. Campbell took petitioner’s money without her knowledge, we would not expect her to realize that Mr. Campbell was taking aggressive tax losses against the gains in her account. See Resser v. Commissioner, supra at 1538 (noting that “traders in highly volatile instruments [could] expect to have large realized gains or lossesPage: Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Next
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