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her manager had the sole authority to decide whether she was to
receive training and whether petitioners’ case was to be
reassigned to another revenue agent. Those decisions constituted
managerial and not ministerial acts. Example 4 of the temporary
regulations assists in the resolution of this issue:
A revenue agent is sent to a training course, and
the agent’s supervisor decides not to reassign the
agent’s cases. During the training course, no
work is done on the cases assigned to the agent.
Neither the decision to send the agent to the
training course nor the decision not to reassign
the agent’s cases is, under the circumstances, a
ministerial act. Thus, interest attributable to
the delay cannot be abated. [Sec. 301.6604-2T(b),
Example (4), Temporary Proced. & Admin. Regs., 52
Fed. Reg. 30163 (Aug. 13, 1987).]
See Jacobs v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2000-123; Gorgie v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2000-80. Because there is no
“ministerial” act performed by respondent’s employees or officers
that caused any delay in the resolution of petitioners’ case,
respondent could not abate interest for this period.
Accordingly, we uphold respondent’s final determination not to
abate interest for this first period.
With respect to the second period at issue, which because of
the parties’ settlement now only involves October 7, 1997,
through January 20, 1998, and August 7 through October 28, 1998,
petitioners’ argument centers on the allegedly unreasonable delay
resulting from the assignment of their case to a new revenue
agent who, during the processing of petitioners’ case, died.
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