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if the ordinary procedure is not followed. Petitioner cites no
case, no statute, no regulation, and no other relevant authority
to support his argument.6
The Internal Revenue Code and the regulations do not require
the Commissioner to send a preliminary 30-day letter or to hold
an administrative Appeals hearing before issuing a notice of
deficiency. A 30-day letter and an opportunity for an Appeals
hearing is a matter of administrative practice and procedure and
not a requirement of law. It is hornbook law that “interpretive
rules, general statements of policy or rules of agency
organization, procedure or practice” are not binding upon an
agency. Chrysler Corp. v. Brown, 441 U.S. 281, 313-314 (1979).
In making his argument, petitioner and his counsel fail to
cite the long unbroken line of cases stretching back nearly 50
years rejecting petitioner’s argument. For example, in a recent
unpublished opinion in Greene v. Commissioner, 12 Fed. Appx. 606,
607 (9th Cir. 2001), affg. T.C. Memo. 2000-26, the Court of
6Petitioner, in his petition and brief, also cited In re
Universal Life Church, Inc., 191 Bankr. 433 (Bankr., E.D. Cal.
1995); Lyng v. Payne, 476 U.S. 926 (1986); and Fano v. O’Neill,
806 F.2d 1262 (5th Cir. 1987), in support of his argument that
the notice of deficiency is invalid because respondent failed to
follow his administrative guidelines. We do not see, and
petitioner made no effort to explain, the relevance of the
Universal Life Church, Lyng, and Fano cases to his argument that
the notice of deficiency respondent issued is invalid because
respondent failed to provide petitioner with a preliminary 30-day
notice or an opportunity for a hearing before an Appeals officer.
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