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sufficient for all legal purposes,” respondent could
ignore the deficiency procedures. This is because the
return is a consent to assessment of tax in our tax
system. See sec. 6201(a)(1) and sec. 1.6201-1(a)(1),
Income Tax Regs. Congress has recognized that literal
application of section 6020(b) may create anomalous
results and has provided some explicit safeguards: The
“execution of a return by the [respondent] pursuant to
[section 6020(b)] shall not start the running of the
period of limitations on assessment and collection.”
Sec. 6501(b)(3). * * * [Id. at 931-932; fn. ref.
omitted.]
We concluded that “the substitute return should in no way
preclude a taxpayer’s statutory right to a hearing on the
deficiency and the elements that comprise it.”6 Id. at 936.
Section 6201(a)(1) provides that “The Secretary shall assess
all taxes determined by the taxpayer or by the Secretary as to
which returns or lists are made under this title.” Although
section 6201(a)(1) does not appear to distinguish between the
obligations to assess a tax with respect to a return filed by the
taxpayer and a return filed by the Commissioner, Congress surely
6Petitioner argues that in Millsap v. Commissioner, 91 T.C.
926 (1988), the taxpayer did not raise, and this Court did not
address, whether the Commissioner could assess an income tax in a
case involving a sec. 6020(b) return without going through the
deficiency procedures. However, in the headnote to that opinion,
we stated: “P contends that R’s preparation of a return under
authority of sec. 6020(b) does not obviate P’s statutory right to
deficiency procedures, including our redetermination of R’s
determination of filing status.” Id. at 926. And, we held that
“the returns prepared by R do not obviate P’s entitlement to
deficiency procedures”. Id.
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