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Estate of Citrino v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1987-565. At the
hearing, the estate conceded that it had received actual notice7
of the estate tax deficiency but emphasized that respondent did
not provide it. The estate’s position is that a notice of
deficiency is not valid for purposes of section 6212(a) unless
respondent provides it to the estate directly. As support, the
estate cites Keeton v. Commissioner, 74 T.C. 377, 385 (1980), and
Houghton v. Commissioner, 48 T.C. 656, 661 (1967), cases in which
we concluded that a power of attorney directing respondent to
mail copies of notices of deficiency to the attorney does not
permit the substitution of the attorney’s address for the
taxpayer’s last known address. Keeton v. Commissioner, supra,
and Houghton v. Commissioner, supra at 666, are distinguishable,
however, because the taxpayer in each of those cases did not have
actual notice of the deficiencies and did not file timely
petitions.
When a taxpayer receives actual notice of a deficiency and
does not suffer prejudicial delay in filing a timely petition
with this Court, the notice of deficiency, even though
incorrectly addressed, is valid under section 6212(a). St.
Joseph Lease Capital Corp. v. Commissioner, 235 F.3d 886, 891-892
7The record is not clear as to how the estate learned of the
notice of deficiency. One of the estate’s attorneys may have
informed the estate of the notice, or the notice that was mailed
to the Aspen address may have been forwarded by the U.S. Postal
Service to Ms. Norquist.
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