- 59 -
in-compromise, request an installment agreement, or raise other
considerations at any time, before, during, or after the Notice
of Intent to Levy hearing.” H. Conf. Rept. 105-599, supra at
266, 1998-3 C.B. at 1020. This Court should consider the entire
record of the actions taken by the Appeals Office at the time it
conducts its judicial review.
Consequently, where the Appeals officer has invited or
requested relevant facts or documents from the taxpayer, before
or at the collection hearing, and those facts or documents are
not provided within a reasonable time, their attempted
introduction as new evidence at trial may not establish an abuse
of discretion. This could be the result because of the temporal
requirement, even though an abuse of discretion might have been
demonstrated had the documentation been timely produced before or
at the collection hearing.
In the instant case, the Appeals officer’s failure to fairly
consider evidence available at the hearing and to request and
consider possible corroborating evidence (where petitioner’s and
his accountant’s credibility was, in the Appeals officer’s mind,
at issue), coupled with the failure to ascertain whether a
material breach of the existing offer-in-compromise had occurred,
constituted an abuse of discretion.
COHEN, LARO, GALE, THORNTON, HAINES, and GOEKE, JJ., agree
with this concurring opinion.
Page: Previous 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 NextLast modified: May 25, 2011