Sarah R. Elgart and Stephen K. Glassman - Page 9

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          address.2  See Mulvania v. Commissioner, supra at 67-68.  We note           
          that the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has           
          squarely addressed and rejected petitioners' argument in Berger             
          v. Commissioner, 404 F.2d 668 (3d Cir. 1968), affg. 48 T.C. 848             
          (1967).  In Berger at 675 the Court stated:                                 
               We therefore reject a construction of the procedural                   
               provisions of section 6212 which would yield the                       
               startling conclusion that a notice given to clients and                
               their lawyer is inadequate even though they received it                
               in due course, simply because the lawyer's copy should                 
               have been the original, and the channel of certified                   
               mail which was used for the taxpayers should have been                 
               used for the lawyer.                                                   
          Moreover, petitioners' argument that because the IRS did not send           
          an original of the deficiency notice to Ms. Steinhauer, the date            
          of her receipt commences the 90-day period for filing of the                
          petition lacks merit.                                                       
               Turning to petitioners' argument that they were advised by             
          several employees of the IRS that the date by which a petition              
          must be filed in this case was March 14, 1996, we are unable to             
          provide any relief for petitioners.  The law is clear that                  
          erroneous legal advice rendered by employees of the IRS generally           
          is not binding on the Commissioner.  Dixon v. United States, 381            
          U.S. 68, 72-73 (1965); Schuster v. Commissioner, 312 F.2d 311               
          (9th Cir. 1962), affg. in part and revg. in part 32 T.C. 998 and            

          2  However, as indicated earlier, it appears that the copy                  
          Ms. Steinhauer received was stamped "ORIGINAL".  In this day of             
          modern communication and photocopies, there is little to                    
          distinguish an original from a copy stamped "ORIGINAL".                     




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