Gary Lewis Sparrow v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

HARRISON L. .WINTER, Chief Judge:

Taxpayer, who in 1980 received wages of $21,464 from the Marine Corps Air Station, petitioned the Tax Court to redetermine a claimed deficiency in his income taxes for 1980. He asserted that because he was a member of a religious order who had taken a vow of poverty and had engaged in secular employment at the direction of his eccle siastical superiors as an agent of that order, his earnings were nontaxable. Although taxpayer, through his attorney, advised counsel for the Commissioner that neither the attorney nor taxpayer would appear at trial to present any…