- 3 - 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 partiesPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011