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errors”.3 Because the taxpayers had never adopted any method of
accounting other than the cash method, there was no change in
method of accounting requiring prior consent.
Evans is distinguishable from the present case. Evans
involved individual taxpayers who relied on informational returns
issued to them by a corporation to complete their tax returns.
In filling out their returns, the taxpayers presumably merely
transferred the numbers from one form to the other, creating
errors analogous to posting errors. In the present case, BMP
historically had consistently included the substantial and
recurring downpayments in income in the year in which they were
received. Even if petitioner was not aware that there may have
been an issue concerning the proper timing for the inclusion in
income, he nevertheless consciously included the downpayments in
income, thereby creating a method of accounting with respect to
this material item. There is no analogy to a posting error in
this case, and it cannot be said that BMP never adopted the
method of accounting at issue.
A case which is more directly on point is a case decided by
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit,4 Commissioner v.
3This Court has stated that a “posting error is an error in
‘the act of transferring an original entry to a ledger.’” Wayne
Bolt & Nut Co. v. Commissioner, 93 T.C. 500, 510-511 (1989)
(quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 1050 (5th ed. 1979)).
4But for the provisions of sec. 7463(b), the decision in
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