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purpose of showing that petitioner asked respondent to waive the
section 6661 penalty.
Petitioner reserved objections to certain stipulated facts
proposed by respondent. Petitioner did not address the
objections until his reply brief. Relying on Midkiff v.
Commissioner, 96 T.C. 724, 734 (1991), affd. sub nom. Noguchi v.
Commissioner, 992 F.2d 226 (9th Cir. 1993), respondent argues
that because of petitioner’s failure to address his evidentiary
objections at trial or on opening brief, petitioner has abandoned
the objections reserved in the parties’ stipulation of facts.
Midkiff held that objections not addressed in briefs are
abandoned. While that case did not distinguish between opening
and reply briefs, it would be unreasonable to allow a party to
wait until filing a reply brief to address the party's
objections, because it eliminates the opportunity for the adverse
party to respond. We have found that petitioner in these cases
waited until he filed his reply brief to address his objections;
accordingly, we hold that petitioner did not preserve his
objections.5
The Plan Distribution
5 Despite our holding that petitioner’s objections were
abandoned, we note that we did not rely on the statements
contained in the declarations of Bruce A. Hughes, which
petitioner argued are hearsay. Furthermore, the substance of
respondent’s internal request for technical advice was not
relevant to the legal conclusions reached in these cases.
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