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duties.”). At trial, both petitioners credibly testified that they
did not receive a notice of attempted delivery from the USPS and
that they did not know that the USPS was attempting to deliver a
certified letter to them.
An individual’s claim that he/she did not receive notice of
attempted delivery of a certified letter may lack credibility when
the USPS makes more than one attempt to deliver the certified
letter and leaves separate notices of each attempt at the address
on the envelope. Under those circumstances, it may be unlikely
that the individual did not receive at least one of the notices;
instead, it may be apparent that the individual chose to ignore the
notices. In such event, the individual’s conduct constitutes
deliberate refusal of delivery and repudiation of the opportunity
to contest the notices of deficiency in this Court.
In the case herein, petitioners failed to claim the notice of
deficiency because they did not receive the USPS’s notice of
attempted delivery of a certified letter. Petitioners did not
deliberately avoid delivery of the certified letter. They did not
receive the notice of deficiency, and the avoidance exception to
actual receipt is not applicable in this case.
To conclude, we find that, under section 6330(c)(2)(B),
petitioners should have been allowed to challenge their underlying
tax liabilities for 1990 and 1991 at the hearing. In cases where
the taxpayer did not receive a notice of deficiency for a
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