Laura A. Loveland Espinosa - Page 20




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          question of whether a deficiency determination or assessment                
          against the transferor must precede imposition of transferee                
          liability, the Court of Appeals in Kuckenberg v. Commissioner,              
          309 F.2d at 206, summarily disposed of the transferees’                     
          contentions as follows:  “they assert that the United States does           
          not have the status of a creditor since no ninety-day letter was            
          sent to the corporation.  However, the government need not take             
          futile assessment action against a taxpayer without assets.”                
               From these authorities, we conclude that the notice of                 
          transferee liability received by petitioner is not rendered                 
          ineffective either by the alleged invalidity of the notices of              
          deficiency sent to Mr. Espinosa in 1989 or by respondent’s                  
          failure to issue deficiency notices to Mr. Espinosa with respect            
          to the returns filed in 1993.  As regards the 1989 notices, these           
          documents neither created nor impacted the underlying tax debt.             
          Hence, their existence and any procedural irregularities in their           
          issuance are irrelevant to the question of whether a transfer is            
          constructively fraudulent, and, as will be seen below, we find it           
          unnecessary to reach the issue of actual fraud.                             
               With respect to the failure to send Mr. Espinosa notices of            
          deficiency based on the filed returns, the law referenced above             
          does not require respondent first to take useless action against            
          a transferor.  Here, Mr. Espinosa had earned no income since                
          1991, and respondent was aware that Mr. Espinosa’s financial                






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