Court Opinion

ID: 9476328
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:53:06.204575+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:15.148408
License: Public Domain

DAVID A. NELSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the judgment and opinion of the court, and write separately only to emphasize that under any hypothesis as to how the Reeds might have filed their returns, they failed to show that there would not have been a tax deficiency as to both of them.
An interesting question would have been presented if the evidence had shown that all of the deductions in question could legitimately have been claimed by Mrs. Reed on separate returns and that no tax would have been due from Mrs. Reed if the couple *327had chosen to handle the deductions in that manner. In point of fact, however, the record affirmatively shows that many of the deductions could not properly have been claimed by Mrs. Reed had separate returns been filed. Some of the expenditures in question were paid by checks drawn on a checking account maintained by Mr. Reed alone. Other expenditures consisted of interest payments on charge accounts maintained solely by Mr. Reed. Still other expenditures were for state and local taxes on Mr. Reed’s income and for sales taxes that could have been attributed only to Mr. Reed had the couple filed separate returns. Finally, the Reeds’ expert witness attributed to Mrs. Reed a sizable capital loss incurred in a commodities trading account maintained solely in the name of Mr. Reed. Mrs. Reed failed to demonstrate that she would have had no tax deficiency if she had filed separate returns claiming all of the deductions that she was legally entitled to claim, so this court need not decide — and, as I understand the opinion, does not purport to decide — whether Mrs. Reed could properly have been convicted if the facts had been shown to be otherwise.