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The Court of Appeals in Clapp went on to observe that the
availability of remedies for an arbitrary or inaccurate
deficiency determination, such as shifting the burden of proof to
the Commissioner and/or awarding litigation costs, would make
greater substantive review "of the Commissioner's threshold
'determination', undertaken solely for purposes of exercising
subject matter jurisdiction * * * duplicative and burdensome on
the courts and the Commissioner." Id. at 1403.
Applying these principles to the present case, it is clear
that the notice of deficiency concerns petitioners' tax liability
for 1978 and that the deficiency is attributable to respondent's
determination to disallow an interest deduction in the amount of
$67,972.50 with respect to petitioners' participation in Kersting
programs. Petitioners do not dispute that they reported a
Kersting-related interest deduction on their 1978 income tax
return. Consequently, we find that respondent considered
information relating to petitioners' 1978 tax liability in
preparing the notice of deficiency. Scar v. Commissioner, 814
F.2d at 1370. In addition, unlike Scar, and cases such as Kong
v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1990-480, and Watson v. Commissioner,
T.C. Memo. 1993-42, the notice does not contain a statement that
respondent issued the notice without examining petitioners' tax
return in order to protect the Government's interest. Under the
circumstances, the notice of deficiency does not reveal on its
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