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As support for the Appeals Office decision to reject
petitioners’ installment agreement proposals, respondent points
to petitioners’ default on a prior installment agreement.
Granted, such a circumstance might appropriately be considered by
the Appeals Office as a ground for rejecting an installment
agreement proposal. See, e.g., Orum v. Commissioner, 123 T.C. 1
(2004). In the instant case, however, the Appeals Office
apparently did not regard petitioners’ prior default as a reason
to deny them a new installment agreement. To the contrary, it
offered petitioners a new installment agreement (of $2,700 per
month), notwithstanding their prior default. A consideration
that played no part in the Appeals Office determination--and in
fact is controverted by it--cannot provide the basis for
sustaining that determination.16
15(...continued)
account interest accruals) totaled $53,088, it is not apparent
that petitioners’ $1,200 per month proposal would require
extending the 10-year collection statute expiration date at all,
much less to 2014.
16 For similar reasons, we do not find persuasive
respondent’s argument on brief that the Appeals officer’s
rejection of petitioners’ installment agreement should be
sustained on the ground that petitioners “continued to live
beyond their means as petitioners failed to curb their credit
card debt.” We find no indication in the record that such a
consideration played any part in the Appeals officer’s
determinations, and we are not persuaded that respondent’s
apparent afterthought in this regard suffices to sustain the
Notice of Determination. In reaching this conclusion, we do not
mean to suggest that respondent is invariably confined strictly
to the four corners of the Notice of Determination or to the
evidence compiled during the administrative proceeding. Cf.
(continued...)
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