But unfortunately Steve Jarvis doesn’t get that far, in Steven L. Jarvis and Estate of Cynthia S. Jarvis, Deceased, Steven L. Jarvis, Special Administrator, 2013 T. C. Sum. Op. 11, filed 2/19/13. Judge Kerrigan has this one, but Steve really didn’t make any showing here, unlike Ronald Webster Moore, the star of 2012 T. C. Sum. Op. 83, filed 8/23/12, and my blogpost “Ambiguity Is the Best Policy”, of even date therewith, as the high-priced lawyers say.

Ronnie had Judge Goeke deconstruct the automatic premium loan payment option provisions in Ronnie’s youthful indiscretion with Nationwide Insurance (the company that’s On Your Side), which got Ronnie off the hook, but Judge Kerrigan doesn’t do that for Connecticut General or for their successor-in-interest, Lincoln National Insurance Co., upon whose side, if anyone’s, they are to be found is nowhere specified. So Steve gets deficiency and penalty when he failed to report the payoff of the $83K loan he had automatically racked up.

Judge Kerrigan appears to surmise that the premium loans were all timely made over the 18 years the automatic premium loan payment option was in effect. And Steve didn’t try for a burden-of-proof shift, which Ronnie did and got, nor claim he tossed the annual loan statements unread as sales pitches.

Steve claimed he never got the 1099-R from Lincoln National, showing the taxable amount of the automatic payment unwinding. Judge Kerrigan: “Petitioners contend that they did not receive the information regarding the taxable income, but Lincoln National Insurance Co. mailed the Form 1099-R to petitioners’ correct address, and they have not provided any evidentiary basis for a factual finding that they did not receive it.” 2013 T. C. Sum. Op. 11, at p. 8.

So Steve winds up like Jimmy Ledger, in my blogpost “The Wrong Side of the Ledger”, 8/2/11.

Steve’s testimony does not appear in the opinion, so I doubt he had much. And for the $6K in tax and the $1K in penalty it wasn’t worth getting a Tax Court admittee. Too bad, because a defense like Ronnie’s might have saved the day here.