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In any event, taxpayers ordinarily would not have to ask for
consents during the course of a lengthy audit; respondent would
likely request Forms 872 from a related supplier and an FSC in
order to preserve his ability to assess any FSC-related
deficiencies against one or the other. Here, respondent
presumably did not request Forms 872 from UCFSC because the audit
of the taxpayers' previous 3-year cycle had not yielded any FSC-
related adjustments. It is of course also true, as respondent
recognizes, that regardless of the IRS's willingness or
unwillingness to grant consents, a taxpayer in petitioner's shoes
need only anticipate the possibility of favorable revisions to
its FSC expenses and file a protective claim for refund within
the proper time in order to preserve rights under the Regulation.
Petitioner next argues that the Regulation unreasonably
"creates a double standard, permitting respondent to 'whipsaw'
taxpayers with respect to the Commissioner's FSC recomputations";
i.e., by assessing FSC-related deficiencies against one taxpayer
after the period for the other taxpayer to claim refunds has
expired. Although not identical, we think that the situation
posed by petitioner is analogous to that in Collins Elec. Co. v.
Commissioner, 67 T.C. 911 (1977). In that case we stated that
Section 482 may contemplate a suspension of the
running of the statute of limitation on claims for refund
of the overpayment attributable to the correlative
adjustment or, as the first sentence of section 1.482-
1(d)(2), Income Tax Regs., * * * seems to suggest, may
impose a positive duty on the Commissioner, without regard
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