- 14 -
The record is devoid of any evidence that petitioner relied
on a prior decision, in any form, or audit conducted by the IRS
to support his claim for relief. Petitioner’s testimony that he
researched the utility of chair rental agreements by speaking to
hired beauticians or other salons in the area does not meet the
burden of establishing an industrywide practice of treating
beauticians as independent contractors. Petitioner did not offer
any witnesses to testify about an industry practice of renting
chairs to beauticians and treating them as independent
contractors. See, e.g., Gen. Inv. Corp. v. United States, 823
F.2d.
Petitioner’s final contention is that although he did not
meet the statutory requirements of section 530, he is entitled to
relief because he “complied with the spirit of section 530". We
recognize that section 530 was enacted by Congress to alleviate
what it perceived as overzealous tax collection activity by the
IRS. See Boles Trucking, Inc. v. United States, 77 F.3d 236, 239
(8th Cir. 1996); Ren-Lyn Corp. v. United States, 968 F. Supp.
363, 366 (N.D. Ohio 1997). In Erickson v. Commissioner, 172
Bankr. 900, 912 (Bankr. D. Minn. 1994), the court noted:
The essence of the safe harbor provision is to
grant protection to the taxpayer who has consistently
treated workers as independent contractors but has not
been previously challenged by the IRS. In effect,
where the taxpayer’s filings have put the IRS on notice
and the IRS has not acted without delay, the taxpayer
must be shielded from the compounding effects of the
error.
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