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not rely on petitioner’s testimony to establish his position with
respect to any of the expenses that he is claiming in this case.
Claimed Unreimbursed Employee Expenses
A taxpayer is entitled to deduct under section 162(a)
unreimbursed employee expenses only to the extent that the
taxpayer demonstrates that such taxpayer could not have been
reimbursed for such expenses by such taxpayer’s employer. Podems
v. Commissioner, 24 T.C. 21, 23 (1955).11
Petitioner contends that the unreimbursed employee expenses
at issue could not have been reimbursed because he incurred them
during travel freezes in 2001 and no company vice president
approved them. Respondent disagrees.
We have found that petitioner did not submit any requests
for reimbursement of employee expenses that he paid during
certain unidentified travel freezes in the year at issue and that
he made no attempt to obtain the approval of a vice president
authorizing reimbursement of any such expenses. On the instant
record, we find that petitioner has failed to carry his burden of
showing that a company vice president would not have approved any
employee expenses which he paid during such travel freezes and
for which he did not request reimbursement. On that record, we
further find that petitioner has failed to carry his burden of
establishing that he could not have been reimbursed by his
11See also Putnam v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1998-285;
Marshall v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1992-65.
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