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Willful neglect means a conscious, intentional failure or
reckless indifference. Boyle, supra at 245.
Petitioner failed to file a tax return for 2000 and, thus,
is liable for the addition to tax imposed by section 6651(a)(1)
unless the failure was due to reasonable cause and not due to
willful neglect. Petitioner had sufficient gross income for 2000
so that he was required to file a return.2 He had filed tax
returns from 1971 to 1995, when he stopped because, as his wife
testified, they had done research and “realized that there had
been a lot of unconstitutional things happening in the tax laws
and we decided that we weren’t going to be robbed anymore.” As
the cases we cited above show, petitioner’s reasons for not
filing are spurious. Petitioner’s failure in his duty to file a
tax return for 2000 was both conscious and intentional. A person
with gross income equal to petitioner’s gross income for 2000,
exercising ordinary business care and prudence, would have filed
a tax return for 2000. Petitioner consciously and intentionally
failed to file a tax return for 2000. Petitioner was willfully
neglectful in failing to do so, and we so find.
We sustain an addition to tax under section 6651(a)(1) in
the amount of $21,003.
2 See supra note 1.
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