I’ve done that, but not on the scale of Mark P. Himmel and Deborah W. Himmel, T. C. Memo. 2025-35, filed 4/17/25. Over six (count ’em, six) years at issue, Mark and Deb dropped $867K in their Arabian horsebreeding and training operation.
That earns Judge Tamara Ashford a trudge through the nine factors of the “goofy regulation” (Reg. 1.183-2(b)). And though Hurricane Katrina did damage their operation, and Mark got enmeshed in a cheating scandal while judging the National Championship, that’s not enough to show that externals torpedoed an otherwise thriving business. Mark’s $225K settlement of his lawsuit against the Nationals isn’t business profit.
Too much fun, not enough paper (no written business plan, insufficient careful recordkeeping), not enough experts (spoke to them, but didn’t hire them to guide Mark and Deb to success), and while they advertised and showed up at shows, and certainly put in time on the horse ranch, that’s not enough.
More horseplayers win at the track than in Tax Court.
Taishoff Law 
[…] get the final result. I asked Lew Taishoff, who blogs the Tax Court with great intensity and also covered the opinion. He could not discern what caused the case to kick around for so […]
LikeLike
[…] get the final result. I asked Lew Taishoff, who blogs the Tax Court with great intensity and also covered the opinion. He could not discern what caused the case to kick around for so […]
LikeLike
[…] get the final result. I asked Lew Taishoff, who blogs the Tax Court with great intensity and also covered the opinion. He could not discern what caused the case to kick around for so […]
LikeLike
I still don’t know. But then again, the leisurely (not to say lackadaisical) pace of Tax Court practice never fails to confound me.
LikeLike