No, I’m not pitching a charity. I’m repeating an ancient cliché, the one about the shoemaker’s children never having shoes (see infra, as my high-priced colleagues say). I don’t know what the parents of Paulette Thompson, T. C. Memo. 2024-14, filed 2/5/24, did for a living, or what shoes Paulette’s three adult children may have. But I do know that Judge Christian N. (“Speedy”) Weiler tells us that “Mrs. Thompson confirmed that she had acted as a paid return preparer and that she had prepared dozens of tax returns during the tax years at issue—just not her own.” T. C. Memo. 2024-14, at p. 15. In fact, in each of the three (count ’em, three) years at issue, Mrs. Thompson grossed north of $50K from tax prep, aside from her farming operations.

She didn’t file Sched C for any such year, but put the tax prep on her late-filed and unprocessed Sched F as “Custom Hire (Machine Work).” T. C. 2024-14, at p. 8.

Needless to say, Mrs. Thompson isn’t a great witness on the trial, and doesn’t fare so well in the substantiation stakes.  And the returns she did file, she filed late. Pro se, of course, so there are some painful “own goals” here..

I’ve said it before: “Often the shoemaker’s children have no shoes. Preparers often do what they’d berate their clients for doing.” See my blogpost “The Snitches and the Fiction Writer,” 6/1/16.