Frank J. Gorgie and Rosalia Gorgie - Page 10




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          acts were not ministerial.                                                    
          Petitioners are particularly upset by the initiation of the                   
          criminal fraud investigation because the CID ultimately rejected              
          the instant case as a criminal fraud case.4  Petitioners also                 
          believe that Agent Mazon relied too heavily on the                            
          unsubstantiated allegations of fraud by an IRS informant.  At the             
          time, however, Agent Mazon found inconsistencies that she                     
          believed were badges of fraud, causing her to suspect petitioner              
          of criminal wrongdoing.  Moreover, the decision to initiate the               
          fraud investigation was not hers alone.  After she consulted with             
          her supervisors, the agreed course was to send the case to the                
          CID, which was within Agent Mazon's province to do and was                    
          certainly not a ministerial act.                                              
               The time spent investigating whether to impose civil or                  
          criminal fraud penalties, regardless of petitioners' guilt or                 
          innocence, is not a ground under section 6404(e) that would allow             
          respondent to abate interest.  Moreover, this Court has held, in              
          Taylor v. Commissioner, 113 T.C. 206, 211-213 (1999), that the                
          Service's decision not to proceed with a civil tax examination                
          while a criminal tax investigation is pending is not a                        
          ministerial act that would warrant the abatement of interest.                 
               In short, the decision to examine petitioners' 1986, 1987,               
          and 1988 taxable years, to conduct a bank deposits analysis on                

          4      Referral of the case to CID extended the audit by 3                    
          months.                                                                       




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