Robert J. and Sylvia Deward - Page 8




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          time treated his writing activity as an active trade or business.           
          Although the taxpayer had no gross receipts from his writing                
          activities in 1993 or 1994, the Court concluded that he had                 
          engaged in the conduct of a trade or business in 1993 and allowed           
          some of his deductions.6  We believe that Mr. Deward’s activities           
          can be distinguished from those of the taxpayer in Vitale.                  
               At trial, petitioners introduced numerous documents in                 
          support of Mr. Deward’s claimed expenses.  Mr. Deward’s testimony           
          at trial indicated that the transcript he presented to his local            
          chapter of the “Great War Society” in September 2006 was the                
          first material he had written with the intention of including it            
          in the book.  Mr. Deward conceded that those materials were                 
          written in the summer of 2006.  He also testified that he                   
          received no gross receipts from the trade or business of writing            
          books between 1997 and 2005.  Mr. Deward presented no evidence              
          establishing that he approached a publisher before receiving the            
          letter from Military History Press L.L.C. in August 2005.                   
               Evidence of written materials that could potentially be                
          included in a book and of communication with a publisher may                
          indicate that Mr. Deward is interested in writing and publishing            
          a book sometime in the future.  However, these events occurred              


               6 Some of the taxpayer’s deductions were disallowed for                
          reasons not relevant to the instant case.  Vitale v.                        
          Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1999-131, affd. without published                  
          opinion 217 F.3d 843 (4th Cir. 2000).                                       






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