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order to prevail, a taxpayer must prove that the Commissioner
exercised this discretion arbitrarily, capriciously, or without
sound basis in fact or law. Lee v. Commissioner, supra at 149;
Woodral v. Commissioner, 112 T.C. 19, 23 (1999).
Petitioner contends that respondent “failed to perform the
ministerial act of issuing an RAR to Mr. Deverna until all cases
were settled.” Specifically, petitioner argues that, when he
received the October 1993 letter from Lerner, the case was
settled and assessments should have been made at that time.
Petitioner argues that interest should be abated from the date of
the October 1993 letter until the dates of the assessments in
1998. Petitioner testified at trial that he received the October
1993 letter and thought that, based on the letter’s contents, the
case was settled with the IRS.
The letter, however, was prepared by Lerner, a
representative of some of the TEFRA partnerships, but not a
representative of Manhattan Associates. It is unclear from the
record whether the October 1993 letter was sent in response to a
specific correspondence between respondent and Lerner. There is
no evidence that petitioner did any of the things described in
the letter as prerequisites to assessments against individual
partners. The letter was not presented to Vogel or Ohrtman as a
basis for petitioner’s allegations that he had settled his case.
The letter was not presented to respondent for consideration
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