- 9 - 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 aPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011