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mail to the same address. Id. at 209-210. The taxpayer did not
receive the notice of deficiency and did not learn of the
deficiency until the 90-day period for petitioning this Court had
expired. Id. at 210. As in Ward v. Commissioner, supra, the
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit concluded that the
Commissioner had failed to exercise reasonable diligence in
obtaining the taxpayer’s last known address. Mulder v.
Commissioner, supra at 212. According to the Court of Appeals,
the returned, undeliverable extension requests should have put
the Commissioner on notice that the taxpayer’s address in the
computer was incorrect. Id. The Court of Appeals again held
that the notice of deficiency was invalid under section 6212.
Id. at 210-211.
The opinions in Ward and Mulder do not compel a conclusion
that the notice of deficiency in this case was invalid because
the cases involved materially different facts and are
distinguishable from this case. The taxpayers in Ward and Mulder
did not receive actual notice of the deficiency and clearly
experienced prejudicial delay in filing a timely petition to
challenge the deficiency. In contrast, the estate received
actual notice of the deficiency and filed a timely petition in
this Court.8
8The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has not decided
a last known address case in which the taxpayers had actual
(continued...)
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