- 39 -
The Court disagrees. Petitioners’ broad-brushed intonations
of business justification lack any sufficient corroboration in
the record. While evidence may support the existence of and
payments on mortgage loans and the life insurance policy, the
documents proffered provide no link to business use. There has
been no adequate effort by petitioners to trace the proceeds of
the loans to any business-related outlays or to connect the
insurance policy to any specific business-related agreement or
transaction. Mr. Skidmore’s unwillingness to credit petitioners’
generalized, unsubstantiated assertions at face value hardly
connotes an abuse of discretion.
Moreover, the inconsistencies between, and lack of
evidentiary support for, a substantial number of the amounts
shown in the financial materials submitted by petitioners largely
vitiate the possibility of any convincing portrayal of hardship.
It simply is unclear what funds were available and where they
were going. For Mr. Skidmore to conclude that the record did not
adequately establish currently not collectible status for
petitioners’ accounts was reasonable.
Like reasoning would also apply with respect to other forms
of collection alternative. Petitioners state on brief that the
Appeals officer refused to consider an offer-in-compromise
because of difficulty in projecting future income. They fault
him for not explaining why a 3- or 5-year average, allegedly
Page: Previous 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011