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petitioner relies on our analysis in Cluck v. Commissioner, 105
T.C. 324 (1995). In focusing on our determination in Cluck to
hold a taxpayer to the stipulation that the taxpayer’s husband
had entered into in an earlier proceeding, petitioner overlooks
the setting of Cluck. In the earlier Cluck proceeding the
taxpayer’s husband, as executor of his mother’s estate, had
stipulated to a $1,420,000 date-of-death fair market value of
property included in the estate; decision was entered in that
estate tax case on the basis of this settlement stipulation; and
the taxpayer’s husband’s inherited portion of that property
amounted to $355,000. Cluck v. Commissioner, 105 T.C. at 329,
331. The taxpayer’s husband then sold the property. Id. at 331.
The taxpayer and her husband filed separate tax returns for the
year of the sale, but filed a joint tax return for a year to
which a claimed net operating loss was carried. Id. at 326-327.
For purposes of determining the amount of the claimed net
operating loss carryover to the joint tax return year it became
important to determine the taxpayer’s husband’s gain or loss on
the sale of the inherited property. In Cluck the taxpayer
contended that her husband’s basis in the inherited property was
really $625,000, and not the $355,000 that would have resulted
from the settlement of the estate tax case. Id. at 331.
The duty of consistency stops a party from unfairly
benefiting from that party’s own error or omission under certain
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