- 11 - pursuant to section 7430. Petitioners calculated the COLA from 1981, but respondent contends that the COLA should be calculated from January 1, 1986. October 1, 1981, and January 1, 1986, are the respective dates on which COLA's were provided pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 28 U.S.C. sec. 2412 (1994), and section 7430. Swanson v. Commissioner, 106 T.C. at 100. Section 7430 has its roots in the EAJA, and, during 1986, Congress amended that section to conform it more closely to the EAJA, adopting the EAJA's $75 per hour limitation on attorney's fees and the EAJA's existing COLA language. Bayer v. Commissioner, 98 T.C. 19, 24 (1992). We recently discussed the question of the appropriate date from which the COLA applicable to awards of attorney's fees should be calculated as follows: Our position on this issue was addressed in Bayer v. Commissioner, 98 T.C. 19 (1992), where we concluded that Congress, in providing for cost of living adjustments in section 7430, intended the computation to start on the same date the COLA's were started under the EAJA; i.e. October 1, 1981. Citing Lawrence v. Commissioner, 27 T.C. 713 (1957), revd. on other grounds 258 F.2d 562 (9th Cir. 1958), we stated that we would continue to use 1981 as the correct year for making the COLA calculation, unless, of course, the Court of Appeals to which appeal lay had held otherwise. [Swanson v. Commissioner, supra at 100; citations omitted.] As noted in our opinion on the merits, petitioners resided in Hampton, New Hampshire, at the time they filed their petition. Consequently, the instant case is appealable to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which has not addressed the question of whether the COLA adjustment is to be made from 1981Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
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