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A similar disclaimer appears in the tax opinion letter
accompanying the Plymouth offering memorandum. Accordingly, the
tax opinion letters expressly indicate that prospective investors
such as petitioners were not to rely upon the tax opinion letter.
See Collins v. Commissioner, supra. The limited, technical
opinion of tax counsel expressed in these letters was not
designed as advice upon which taxpayers might rely and the
opinion of counsel itself so states.
4. Miscellaneous
The parties in these consolidated cases stipulated that the
fair market value of a Sentinel EPE recycler in 1981 and 1982 was
not in excess of $50,000. Notwithstanding this concession,
petitioners contend that they were reasonable in claiming credits
on their Federal income tax returns based upon each recycler's
having a value of $1,162,666. In support of this position,
petitioners submitted into evidence preliminary reports prepared
for respondent by Ernest D. Carmagnola (Carmagnola), the
president of Professional Plastic Associates. Carmagnola had
been retained by the IRS in 1984 to evaluate the Sentinel EPE and
EPS recyclers in light of what he described as "the fantastic
values placed on the [recyclers] by the owners." Based on
limited information available to him at that time, Carmagnola
preliminarily estimated that the value of the Sentinel EPE
recycler was $250,000. However, after additional information
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