- 13 -
facts doctrine is still good law in the tax context, see United
States v. Stauffer Chem. Co., 464 U.S. 165, 172 n.5 (1984); Peck
v. Commissioner, 904 F.2d 525, 527-528 (9th Cir. 1990), affg.
90 T.C. 162 (1988),4 we believe, in any event, that denying a
party the opportunity to litigate an issue is a matter that
requires circumspection. This Court will not use the doctrine of
issue preclusion as a blunt instrument for summarily denying
petitioners an opportunity to litigate the 1991 interest issue.
Instead, we prefer the approach that follows.
c. The Aldergrove Issue
Issue preclusion may operate to preclude relitigation of
evidentiary facts determined in a prior proceeding. See, e.g.,
Meier v. Commissioner, 91 T.C. 273, 286 (1988). Thus, facts that
a party is precluded from relitigating in conjunction with other
facts established by evidence in the latter proceeding may
provide a basis to sustain a deficiency determination by the
Commissioner. Id. at 288-289. The parties agree that the 1991
interest payments are interest payments that were credited to the
Aldergrove account in 1991. To establish that the 1991 interest
4 It should also be noted that the Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit, to which an appeal in this case would likely lie,
stated that the Supreme Court limited the application of
Commissioner v. Sunnen, 333 U.S. 591 (1948), to cases where there
has been a significant change in the legal climate. See, e.g.,
Peck v. Commissioner, 904 F.2d 525, 527 (9th Cir. 1990), affg.
90 T.C. 162 (1988).
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