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missing when a taxpayer does not act for several years, and acts
only after being audited and commencing a Tax court case for the
year at issue. Douthit is not controlling authority for
petitioner.
In United States v. Kleifgen, 557 F.2d 1293, 1297 n.9 (9th
Cir. 1977), a case decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit, the court to which this case is appealable, the
court said:
The Commissioner’s consent to a change in
accounting methods is required regardless of whether
the change is from one proper method to another proper
method or from an improper method to a proper one.
Witte v. Commissioner, * * * 513 F.2d 391 (1975). See
Treas Reg. �1.446-1(e)(2).
In Southern Pac. Transp. Co. v. Commissioner, 75 T.C. 497,
682 (1980), supplemented by 82 T.C. 122 (1984), we said:
In addition, consent is required when a taxpayer,
in a court proceeding, retroactively attempts to alter
the manner in which he accounted for an item on his tax
return. If the alteration constitutes a change in the
taxpayer's method of accounting, the taxpayer cannot
prevail if consent for the change has not been secured.
[Citations omitted.6]
6In dicta, the Court in Southern Pac. Transp. Co. v.
Commissioner, 75 T.C. 497, 685 (1980), said that it was not a
case in which the taxpayer was changing from an incorrect to a
correct method, but that if it were, it might be inclined, under
some decisions of this Court, to not require the Commissioner's
consent. We need not consider those dicta further in light of
the position of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
in United States v. Kleifgen, 557 F.2d 1293, 1297 n.9 (9th Cir.
1977).
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