The Tax Court yesterday refused to allow a California attorney with $138,000 of annual salary income over a six-year period to deduct $75,000 of annual expenses of his "international consulting" side business where the attorney did not report any income from the business over the six year period. Strode v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2012-59 (Mar. 5, 2012):

Petitioner did not testify at trial to explain his personal views as to the activity. Petitioner contends that he could not spare time to testify at his trial. If that is true, it remains unexplained why no one else knowledgeable about the facts appeared on his behalf. Perhaps there were none, although several years have passed since the asserted business commenced. We note that petitioner’s failure to introduce evidence “which, if true, would be favorable to him, gives rise to the presumption that if produced it would be unfavorable”.