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Given the conflicting information submitted to respondent by
petitioners, respondent’s efforts at clarification, and
petitioners’ failure to respond, we believe that respondent
exercised reasonable diligence in attempting to ascertain
petitioners’ correct address, particularly in light of the brief
period between the time respondent first became aware of a
discrepancy in the addresses and the time when the 3-year period
of limitations would expire. Unlike Sicari, the identity of the
two addresses of which respondent was aware herein would not have
been “apparent” upon comparison. Also, there is no evidence
regarding which, if any, database maintained by respondent had
been modified to reflect the Braun Co. address. The only
evidence of respondent’s use of the Braun Co. address was his
letter seeking clarification of petitioners’ conflicting address
instructions. Given the ambiguity introduced by those
instructions, we do not believe that respondent’s continued use
of the old Box 227 address constitutes a lack of reasonable
diligence. As the Court of Appeals stated in Sicari:
faced with two addresses corresponding to different
locations * * * the Service could not be faulted for
using the old address under circumstances where it had
no particular reason to know at which of the two
different locations the taxpayer was living. * * *
[Sicari v. Commissioner, supra at 929-930.]
Nor was respondent required to send the notice to both addresses.
“[R]easonable diligence does not require that the IRS send
duplicate notices to every address of which it has knowledge.”
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Last modified: May 25, 2011