- 6 -
the Service employee who initiated the contact. * * *
In response to the March 5 letter, the IRS sent a form
letter, Letter 1721(DO), dated March 13, 1996, to petitioners at
the Braun Co. address. The letter indicated that the requested
transcript of petitioners’ account was enclosed. In addition, in
a section in the form letter designed for nonstandard notices,
the following was written:
YOUR 1992 RETURN IS BEING AUDITED. IF YOU OWE ANY
MONEY YOU WILL RECEIVE A BILL. WE ARE ENCLOSING THE
PUBLICATIONS YOU HAVE REQUESTED AND A FORM 8822 FOR A
CHANGE OF ADDRESS. PLEASE RETURN FORM IN ENCLOSED
ENVELOPE IF YOU WANT ADDRESS CHANGED.
Petitioners received the form letter but did not respond to it.
As previously noted, the notice of deficiency was mailed on
April 2, 1996. On April 4, 1996, the Peconic, New York, branch
of the U.S. Postal Service received the envelope containing the
notice of deficiency. Also on April 4, the Peconic postmaster
put a notice of delivery of certified mail, PS Form 3849, into
P.O. Box 227. When the notice of deficiency was not claimed by
petitioners, the postmaster put a second notice of delivery of
certified mail into P.O. Box 227 on May 11. The notices of
delivery indicated that the certified mail was from the IRS.
Neither notice of delivery was responded to, and as a result, on
or after May 20, the envelope containing the notice of deficiency
was marked “unclaimed” and returned to the IRS. Petitioner
testified that petitioners never received any mail from the IRS
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011