Dennis Stewart - Page 6




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          proceed with collection with respect to petitioner’s 1990 through           
          1998 tax years.                                                             
               Section 6673(a)(1) authorizes this Court to require a                  
          taxpayer to pay to the United States a penalty not to exceed                
          $25,000 if the taxpayer took frivolous positions in the                     
          proceedings or instituted the proceedings primarily for delay.              
          In Pierson v. Commissioner, 115 T.C. 576, 581 (2000), we issued             
          an unequivocal warning to taxpayers concerning the imposition of            
          a penalty pursuant to section 6673(a) on taxpayers who abuse the            
          protections afforded by sections 6320 and 6330 by instituting or            
          maintaining actions under those sections primarily for delay or             
          by taking frivolous or groundless positions in such actions.                
               In its opinion regarding petitioner’s first U.S. District              
          Court lawsuit, the U.S. District Court stated that “Stewart is a            
          vexatious litigant” and that “Stewart’s complaints appear to be             
          an embittered and reckless attempt to chastise all who played any           
          role, however trivial, in the foreclosure proceedings upon his              
          house and his eviction therefrom and, thus, filed for an improper           
          purpose.”  The U.S. District Court sanctioned petitioner and                
          ordered him to pay the attorney’s fees of the defendants in that            
          lawsuit.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit                   
          affirmed, by unpublished opinion, the judgment of the U.S.                  
          District Court–including the imposition of sanctions.  Stewart v.           
          Fleet Fin. Group, supra.                                                    






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