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is thereafter estopped from taking a contrary position in an
effort to avoid taxes. Id. at 542.
There are a number of justifications for the duty of
consistency, the most obvious being that taxpayers should not be
able to maintain inconsistent positions to obtain an unfair
advantage. As stated by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit:
In adjusting values the Commissioner in effect represents
the interests of all other taxpayers who must bear what the
particular taxpayer unjustly escapes. It is no more right
to allow a party to blow hot and cold as suits his interests
in tax matters than in other relationships. Whether it be
called estoppel, or a duty of consistency, or the fixing of
a fact by agreement, the fact fixed for one year ought to
remain fixed in all its consequences, unless a more just
general settlement is proposed and can be effected. * * *
[Alamo Natl. Bank v. Commissioner, 95 F.2d 622, 623 (5th
Cir. 1938), affg. 36 B.T.A. 402 (1937).]
Aside from eliminating the unfair advantage obtained by a
taxpayer who maintains inconsistent positions, the duty of
consistency also contributes to our self-reporting system of
taxation. As this Court has noted, to allow taxpayers "to
disavow their prior representations * * * would invite similar
intentional deceit on the part of other taxpayers seeking to gain
a tax benefit." LeFever v. Commissioner, supra at 544.
Furthermore, this Court has noted that the duty of consistency
buttresses the values of finality and repose inherent in statutes
of limitation, and it possesses the administrative virtue of
eliminating the fact-finding problems associated with reviewing
old transactions, "when the evidence may be stale and
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