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this proceeding.13 In addition, after respondent’s last warning
on June 19, 2000, the bulk of petitioner’s efforts were devoted
to jurisdictional and procedural challenges to the statutory
notice, rather than to the substantive argument respondent
complains of.14 For these reasons and in these circumstances, we
decline to impose a section 6673 penalty on petitioner.
In conclusion, we note that petitioner’s jurisdictional and
procedural challenges had no legal merit. They were objectively
frivolous and may well have been maintained primarily for delay.
We also note that petitioner is currently before the Court in a
case involving other years.15 Should petitioner ignore the
warnings and holdings of this Court in the case at hand, there
will be ample opportunity to consider whether imposition of a
penalty under section 6673 would be appropriate.
13 We observe that if Mr. Chisum were a lawyer authorized to
practice in this Court, there might well be grounds under Rule
24(g) for disqualifying him from representing petitioner and the
other participants in the trust arrangements that Mr. Chisum has
been promoting and operating, see supra note 2, on the ground
that Mr. Chisum has a conflict of interest. Cf. Para
Technologies Trust v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1992-575. The
predicament that petitioner finds himself in would appear to be
the direct result of the operation of that conflict. See Dixon
v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2000-116, n.18 and accompanying text.
14 In this connection, we note that petitioner’s arguments
against the validity of the statutory notice are almost identical
to Mr. Chisum’s arguments in Universal’s case.
15 Johnston v. Commissioner, docket No. 18619-99.
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