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that were raised at the collection due process hearing or
otherwise brought to the attention of the Appeals officer.
Magana v. Commissioner, 118 T.C. 488 (2002).
Petitioners, at trial, did not explain why they neglected to
raise the issue of abatement of interest with the Appeals
officer. Moreover, at trial, Mr. Giragosian acknowledged receipt
of Form 843, Claim for Refund and Request for Abatement,
accompanied by a letter explaining: “if you feel the interest was
due to unreasonable error or delay you may request an abatement
of interest on the Form 843, which is enclosed.” Petitioners’
only explanation as to why they did not reply to this letter or
file the Form 843 was that they thought it was futile.
Petitioners, therefore, have not established any credible basis
for an exception to the general rule in order to consider the new
issue of abatement of interest.
With respect to petitioners’ argument regarding respondent’s
failure to abate penalties under section 6404,6 assuming there
were penalties, petitioners acknowledged at trial that they did
not raise this issue at their Appeals Office hearing.
6The record does not establish conclusively whether
penalties actually were assessed against petitioners.
Petitioners possessed a letter from an IRS agent stating that
penalties were assessed; however, the letter did not specify what
the penalties were. Likewise, counsel for respondent stated
that, while he was fairly sure no penalties had been assessed
against petitioners, he did find one reference to a sec. 6651(a)
failure to pay penalty in the administrative record, which he
conceded was “not the cleanest”.
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Last modified: May 25, 2011