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not require any judgment or discretion on the part of the ACS
employee.
As a result of the information they received during the
second call, petitioners made payments according to the
installment agreement. They made the monthly $225 payments
without fail and paid $1,345.84 at the end of the installment
period in order to release the lien. We cannot assume that
petitioners would not have made earlier or larger payments to
avoid the accrual of interest had the ACS employee made clear the
correct amount due. Indeed, petitioners paid what they believed
was $895.85 more than they were required to pay in order to
remove the lien. Their subsequent act of claiming a refund of
this amount further supports their position that they believed
their total tax liabilities were extinguished after making 36
payments of $225. Therefore, we find that the ACS employee’s
error in misinforming petitioners caused a delay in payment by
petitioners.
We now must decide the appropriate period during which
interest should have been abated. The first monthly statement
that petitioners received was dated December 11, 1996.
Petitioners’ notes indicate that they made the payment for that
month on December 22, 1996. The second call was made sometime
between December 11 and December 22. Because petitioners have
not provided an exact date on which the second call was made, we
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