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deficiency was effective to confer on it jurisdiction to
determine the correct deficiency owing by the taxpayer. Scar v.
Commissioner, 81 T.C. at 861-862.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding
that a notice of deficiency is invalid if it shows on its face
that no determination of tax owing by the taxpayer was made. The
Court of Appeals stated:
We agree with the Tax Court that no particular
form is required for a valid notice of deficiency, and
the Commissioner need not explain how the deficiencies
were determined. * * * “The notice must at a minimum
indicate that the IRS has determined the amount of the
deficiency.” The question confronting us is whether a
form letter that asserts that a deficiency has been
determined, which letter and its attachments make it
patently obvious that no determination has in fact been
made, satisfies the statutory mandate. [Scar v.
Commissioner, 814 F.2d at 1367; fn. ref. and citations
omitted.]
In Kantor v. Commissioner, 998 F.2d 1514, 1521-1522 (9th Cir.
1993), affg. in part and revg. in part T.C. Memo. 1990-380, the
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit explained its Scar opinion
and the limitation thereon announced in Clapp v. Commissioner,
875 F.2d 1396 (9th Cir. 1989), as follows:
As a general rule, however, we will not “look behind a
deficiency notice to question the Commissioner's
motives and procedures leading to a determination.”
Id. at 1368.
We recognized an exception to this rule in Scar,
where the notice of deficiency revealed on its face
that a determination had not been made using the
taxpayer's return. * * *
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