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As a result, the Court’s opinion allows the estate to receive a
deduction for the amount of interest due, $209,943.54, having
paid interest of only $144,947.89, and the adopted opinion orders
respondent to forgo offsetting the overpayment refund by the
outstanding interest liability, which as a result will never be
collected. Rather than inadvertence, the overpayment computation
was the result of the parties’ adherence to a longstanding
practice, followed by parties in many of our cases, to submit
agreed computations of overpayments without interest. The
adopted opinion ignores the parties’ agreed overpayment
computations to reach an incorrect and unjust result.
Indeed, the result reached by the adopted opinion is
contrary to both statutory law and our Rules of Practice and
Procedure (Rules). This is the first instance where this Court
has asserted the jurisdiction to overturn the Commissioner’s
offset of an overpayment pursuant to section 6402(a) to satisfy
an interest assessment. This Court does not have this asserted
jurisdiction, but if it did, the estate should be estopped from
successfully avoiding an agreement reached under our Rules that
the agreed computation conformed with the Court’s opinion in
Estate of Smith v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2001-303, affd. 54
Fed. Appx. 413 (5th Cir. 2002), and manipulating the judicial
process by taking inconsistent positions to avoid the enforcement
of its agreement.
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