This appeal involves the liability of the taxpayer, A. R. Woodham, hereafter called taxpayer, and his wife, Rosalie Woodham, for deficiencies in income taxes and statutory additions thereto (50 percent fraud penalties) as determined and asserted against them by the commissioner in the total amounts of $40,121.09 and $20,060.55, and redetermined by the Tax Court1 in the decreased total amounts of $18,153.60 and $9,076.-82, respectively, for the five successive taxable years 1946 through 1950.
*202Here, contending that instead of $77,-052.07, as found by the Tax Court, based upon respondent’s computation, after giving effect to the adjustments stipulated by the parties at the hearing before it, his interest income was not in excess of $50,285.25, the-amount testified to by his accountant, and that no part of any deficiency which may be due from him for the taxable years 1946-1950, inclusive, due to fraud within the meaning of Sec. 293(b) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939, 26 U.S.C. § 293(b), taxpayer makes two points2 against the Tax Court’s findings and decision.
Arguing under point one that the finding of fact of the Tax Court in rejecting his accountants’ figures of $50,285.25, and sustaining the Commissioner’s determination in the amount of $77,052.07 is clearly erroneous, taxpayer insists that the record demonstrates - that the Commissioner’s determination is without sound basis, and. that the figures of his accountants are soundly based and must be accepted as correct.
Under point two, taxpayer, planting himself firmly on the settled principle of law, that the burden of proof is on the Commissioner to establish fraud, puts forward and relies upon decisions holding that proof merely of substantial understatements of income tax for a particular year or years is not of itself sufficient proof of fraud, citing Goldberg v. Commissioner, 5 Cir., 239 F.2d 316; Davis v. Commissioner, 10 Cir., 184 F.2d 86, 22 A.L.R.2d 967; Wiseley v. Commissioner, 6 Cir., 185 F.2d 263, and Eagle v. Commissioner, 5 Cir., 242 F.2d 635.
Standing firmly on this principle and these cases, taxpayer insists that on this record it must be held that the Tax Court’s finding of fraud is without any evidence to support it or, if there is some evidence, considered on the whole record, it is clearly erroneous and that it may not stand.
We cannot agree with taxpayer on either point. On the contrary, we are of the firm view that on the facts admitted and’ found,3 and the conclusions of the tax court as to the deficiencies and that a part of them as to each of the years was due to taxpayer’s fraudulent *203intent to evade taxes within Sec. 293(b), 26 U.S.C. (1952 ed.) are fully supported,
In so holding we accept taxpayer’s contention that the mere proof *204that there was a substantial understatement of income for a particular year or years is not of itself sufficient to sustain the respondent’s burden of proving fraud. Such proof is, however, evidence which may be looked to and because of the extreme nature of the discrepancies in this case, these facts alone have strong probative force. But there is more, much more to this case than mere discrepancies. There is the failure of the taxpayer to keep books. There are the missing records, and above and beyond all that, and this is taxpayer's Achilles’ heel, there is the complete, the fatal, failure of taxpayer to furnish a reasonable, or any explanation consistent with a real purpose to report all his income and pay all the taxes due by him and inconsistent with the intent to evade payment.
As the Tax Court very well puts it in its opinion, “as evidenced by the amounts of income which petitioner earned, he was a man of considerable business acumen and one of more than average intelligence. He offered no plausible explanation which would tend to excuse his failure to report the large sums of income which he in fact received. The amounts by which he understated his income are too large and such understatements occurred consistently over too long a period of time for us on this record to believe that they were due to anything other than a deliberately fraudulent attempt to evade taxes. In addition to taxpayer’s consistently large understatement of income, we believe that his method of reporting income was a deliberate attempt to conceal the true amount thereof. His returns each year showed only net amounts of income from some three to six sources. He now concedes that he received income during the years in issue from nine to eleven different sources * * * sums greatly in excess of the amounts reported from those sources during the years indicated. That fact, together with his reporting identical amounts of income from those sources for two or three years and his failure to report excessive amounts of income from other sources indicate a willful disregard of his duty to report the true amount of his income.”
These findings and conclusions are not without evidence to support them, they are not shown to be clearly erroneous, indeed, we think that they are correct. The Taxpayer on the stand testified at considerable length and while he did, in answer to a leading question of his counsel, categorically deny that he made the returns with an intent to evade the tax, he nowhere attempted to make a reasonable, or indeed any, explanation as to why he had done what he did. Under the circumstances which showed not mere carelessness or oversight but a positive evasion of his obligation and duty to account for and report his income, it was incumbent upon him to make some reasonable explanation of the course pursued by him, and he wholly failed to do this.
The judgment was right. It is affirmed.