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3. Petitioners are entitled to an abatement or correction
of Respondent’s interest computation errors.
Petitioners’ opening posttrial brief listed a number of asserted
errors, the most significant of which appeared to be (1)
incorrect starting dates for interest computations as to all 3
years’ liabilities, and (2) respondent’s failure to pay interest
or provide offsets on account of a $40,000 settlement offer
amount which respondent held for about 7 months. In petitioners’
motion for reconsideration of our opinion in Goettee I, they
specified about 2-1/2 months of delay periods in addition to the
16-1/4 months they had specified in their opening posttrial
brief. See Goettee v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2004-9, issues 2,
3, and 4.
We agree with petitioners’ contention in their motion
papers:
However, the government cannot avoid an award of
litigation costs by conceding a matter when such
concession is conditioned on terms unacceptable by the
other party. See, Culpepper-Smith v. U.S.A., 50 F.
Supp. 2nd 425, 430 (E.D. Pa 1999).
However, we do not determine that respondent in the instant case
improperly conditioned any concessions. In evaluating the extent
of petitioners’ success we take into account those matters that
respondent conceded (whether early or late in the proceedings) as
well as the one contested matter as to which we held in part for
petitioners.
Petitioners point to the fact that at one point during the
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