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Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2001-153; Garrett v. Commissioner, T.C.
Memo. 1997-231.
Assuming arguendo that all necessary information was
provided to Mr. Norris before his preparation of petitioner’s
1986 return, we still would not deviate from the general rule
that the duty of filing accurate returns cannot be avoided by
placing responsibility on an agent. Even if all necessary
information is supplied to the return preparer, the taxpayer
still has a duty to review the return prior to signing and filing
it in order to ensure that all income items are included. Metra
Chem Corp. v. Commissioner, 88 T.C. at 662; Magill v.
Commissioner, 70 T.C. 465, 479-480 (1978), affd. 651 F.2d 1233
(6th Cir. 1981); Bailey v. Commissioner, 21 T.C. 678, 687 (1954);
Magee v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1993-305; Fraley v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1993-304.11
Petitioner claims that he carefully reviewed the return and
that there was no way he could have recognized that approximately
11See Loftus v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1992-266 n.3,
wherein we stated:
The responsibility to review a return cannot be
trivialized. In Morrow v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo.
1991-101, we held that supplying records to an
accountant and relying on the accountant to prepare a
return was not sufficient to relieve a taxpayer of the
‘ultimate responsibility for the correctness of their
returns.’ Based on the taxpayers’ failure to
adequately review their returns, we sustained the
Commissioner’s negligence determination.
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