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equipment. It could be freezing equipment. It could be any
number of the different types of equipment that we utilize in the
food processing business.” Although he identified the nature of
the business of certain of the vendors, the most he could say
was:
Q [Petitioner’s counsel] Do you have any views
as to the nature of the invoices?
A Yes. I believe these invoices were for either
the purchase, the installation, the moving of equipment
for the processing facility, the new processing
facility on Ashland Avenue.
No invoices were in the record or ever produced. On cross-
examination, Van Bebber admitted that he was not involved in the
accounting with respect to the TIF subsidy or the disputed
expenditures.
Petitioner repeatedly refers to the list of vendors as a
“contemporaneous record”. But the list is, in effect,
contemporaneous only with respect to the recording of amounts
that went into account No. 101226. It is not contemporaneous in
the sense that invoices, purchase orders, or journal entry
explanations reflect the nature of the items purchased. The
witness’s speculation, based on familiarity with certain of the
vendors, is not reliable evidence that the items paid for are
deductible currently or over time through depreciation. On a
record in which it is established that erroneous accounting
entries were made, we have no confidence that the expenditures
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Last modified: November 10, 2007