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The address to which the notices of deficiency are addressed is
in California, which may be the State of petitioner’s legal
residence. The place of petitioner’s legal residence is
important for determining the venue for appeal of a decision of
the Tax Court. Sec. 7482(b). California is within the
geographical boundaries of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit, and Weimerskirch v. Commissioner, 596 F.2d 358
(9th Cir. 1979), revg. 67 T.C. 672 (1977), begins a line of cases
of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to which we defer
in accordance with the doctrine of Golsen v. Commissioner, 54
T.C. 742 (1970), affd. 445 F.2d 985 (10th Cir. 1971). The
general rule established by that line of cases is that, for the
Government to prevail in a case involving unreported income,
there must be some evidentiary foundation linking the taxpayer to
the alleged income-producing activity. See Weimerskirch v.
Commissioner, supra at 362.2 Apparently, however, unless the
2 Although Weimerskirch v. Commissioner, 596 F.2d 358 (9th
Cir. 1979), revg. 67 T.C. 672 (1977), dealt specifically with
illegal unreported income, it is now well established that the
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit applies the Weimerskirch
rule in all cases of unreported income where the taxpayer
challenges the Commissioner’s determination on the merits. E.g.,
Edwards v. Commissioner, 680 F.2d 1268, 1270 (9th Cir. 1982) (in
that case, involving unreported income from an income-generating
auto repair business owned by the taxpayer, the court stated:
“We note, however, that the Commissioner’s assertion of
deficiencies are presumptively correct once some substantive
evidence is introduced demonstrating that the taxpayer received
unreported income. Weimerskirch v. Commissioner, 596 F.2d 358,
360 (9th Cir. 1979).”); Petzoldt v. Commissioner, 92 T.C. 661,
689 (1989) (“the Ninth Circuit requires that respondent come
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