Charles Durham - Page 3

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               Congress came to think that other sorts of delays called for           
          relief from the relentless accrual of interest.  The 1996                   
          amendment (“new section 6404(e)”) therefore empowered the                   
          Commissioner to abate interest caused by any “unreasonable error            
          or delay by an officer or employee of the Internal Revenue                  
          Service * * * in performing a ministerial or managerial act.”               
          Taxpayer Bill of Rights 2, Pub. L. 104-168, sec. 301, 110 Stat.             
          1452, 1457 (1996) (emphases added).  “Managerial” acts include              
          such mistakes as “the temporary or permanent loss of records”               
          and, more generally, mistakes in the “exercise of judgment or               
          discretion relating to management of personnel.”  Proced. &                 
          Admin. Regs., sec. 301.6404-2(b)(1).                                        
               Petitioner’s problems began in April 1995, when the IRS                
          started to audit his 1992 tax return.  The IRS later expanded the           
          audit to his 1993 and 1994 returns.  The audit went slowly: in              
          January 1996, the IRS reassigned the first revenue agent working            
          on this case to other matters and didn’t put a second agent on it           
          until May 1996.  A year later, the case went to the IRS’s Appeals           
          Office.  The Appeals officer concluded that the audit needed                
          additional work and returned the case to the district office in             
          November 1997, where it went into suspended animation.                      
          Respondent blames this on petitioner’s attorney, and petitioner             
          blames it on respondent’s personnel assignments and mishandling             
          of files.  Work finally resumed in early 1999, and the parties              






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