Babetta Schmidt v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

POPE, Circuit Judge.

This case is before us upon petition to review a decision of the tax court rendered on redetermination of deficiency in income tax. Most of the facts which are important to our decision were stipulated. Petitioner, an elderly widow of foreign birth, whose income was derived from rents from real property which she owned, made it a practice to employ each year an accountant whom she entrusted to prepare her tax returns. This continued without incident through the year 1943. The accountant would leave the returns with the petitioner and she would file them. In the year 1944,…