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the lawyer, who advised her to apply for a 6-month extension.
The personal representative filed the proper form, together with
a $20,000 check. The IRS negotiated the check and approved the
request, but failed to notify the personal representative that
the request had been approved, until about 2 years later. When
the extended due date approached and the personal representative
still had not assembled all the necessary information, she again
consulted the lawyer, who again advised her to apply for a 6-
month extension. Again, the personal representative filed the
proper form, this time together with a $50,000 check. Again, the
IRS negotiated the check. This time, the IRS denied the
extension request, but again failed to notify the personal
representative until about 2 years later. See id. at 304-306.
Under the last sentence of section 20.6081-1(a), Estate Tax
Regs., the first 6-month extension used up all the permitted
extension time, and so the lawyer’s advice to file a request for
a second 6-month extension was based on an error of law. See id.
at 320-321, 324. If the second extension request could have been
granted and had been granted (as the personal representative
thought was the case), then the estate tax return filing would
have been timely. See id. at 306. We concluded that the
personal representative reasonably relied on erroneous advice
from the estate’s lawyer, this reliance caused the filing of the
estate tax return to be untimely, and thus the failure to timely
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