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Having been hired, however, petitioners’ accounting firm and tax
return preparers surely bear some significant portion of the
fault for the fact that many of petitioners’ bookkeeping errors
were perpetuated on petitioners’ tax returns. Many questions
that should have been asked by the accountants before preparing
and signing petitioners’ tax returns apparently were not asked.
A taxpayer’s strong personality is no excuse for the failure of
independent tax return preparers to exercise diligence and to
ask questions of their clients that are necessary and that
should be obvious to qualified tax professionals in the
preparation of tax returns.
Petitioner’s reliance on professional tax return preparers
in the preparation and filing of their Federal income tax
returns for the years in issue constitutes a significant basis
for our conclusion that the additions to tax and penalty should
not be sustained in this case. United States v. Boyle, 469 U.S.
241, 251 (1989); Chamberlain v. Commissioner, 66 F.3d 729, 732-
733 (5th Cir. 1995), affg. in part and revg. in part T.C. Memo.
1994-228; Freytag v. Commissioner, 89 T.C. 849, 888-889 (1987),
affd. 904 F.2d 1011, 1017 (5th Cir. 1990), affd. on another
issue 501 U.S. 868 (1991); Guenther v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo.
1995-280; Clark v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1994-278; Beshear v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1990-544.
We believe that the many errors that occurred on
petitioners' original and proposed revised Federal income tax
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