Court Opinion

ID: 9445367
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:26:24.439639+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:13.583210
License: Public Domain

CHAMBERS, Circuit Judge.
Appellants file a “petition for rehearing en banc.” We treat it as a petition for rehearing addressed to the court as constituted for the hearing of the case. Further, we consider it as a suggestion for a rehearing en banc. This is all in accordance with the court’s Rule 23. The petition for rehearing is denied and the suggestion for a rehearing en banc is rejected.
Appellants fear we have announced a rule herein that a taxpayer must prove his deductions conclusively. Such is not the law and we have not said it is.
The opinion said the remand is “on the ground that the findings are not sufficiently definitive.”
Ordinarily, if the government takes the left hand of taxpayer’s account sheet it should take the right hand, too. The findings here seem to say first the books are all right. Then other findings are made which are inconsistent.
There may be cases where it is not necessary to accept the right hand column of figures. This could be one. We do not say it is.
To be specific, on the surface there is a sameness in the figures January 1 to December 7 inclusive that doesn’t look right. To the untrained eye they look as if they were made at one sitting with one pencil. Maybe expert analysis would demonstrate their validity.
This court does not intend to find the facts. That is for the tax court.
POPE, Circuit Judge, adheres to the views expressed in his original dissent herein.