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offers were all determined by respondent to be unprocessable
before that date. Accordingly, it would not have even been
possible for respondent’s agents to apply the local standards to
those six offers.
Third, even if respondent’s agents could have divined the
future publication of the local standards, respondent’s agents
would not have had the opportunity to apply them to petitioners’
first six offers because those offers were determined to be
unprocessable. In other words, those offers were never assigned
to a revenue officer for investigation and evaluation on their
merits.
Fourth, and most importantly, application of the local
standards was but one step in the process of investigating and
evaluating petitioners’ offer in compromise, a process that
repeatedly called for the exercise of judgment and discretion on
the part of the revenue officer. In contrast, a ministerial act
does not involve the exercise of judgment or discretion. Sec.
301.6404-2T(b)(1), Temporary Proced. & Admin. Regs., supra. We
reject petitioners' attempt to dissect a unitary process into a
series of unrelated and independent steps.
Petitioners also contend that respondent erred by not
informing them of the local standards for housing and utilities
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