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statute,” id. at 943, but reasoned that
Just as clearly, however, Plaintiff’s course of action
comported with the obvious intent of the statute--
namely, to provide only a limited window of opportunity
to cure a mistaken filing with the wrong court.
Presumably, Plaintiff had no argument to offer against
the IRS’s contention that the Tax Court lacked
jurisdiction over her appeal. No statutory purpose
would have been advanced if Plaintiff had awaited a
formal Tax Court ruling on this point before commencing
this action.
Id.
We believe, however, that the Andres’ case is not enough
like FirsTier or Render. Even setting to one side the question,
addressed by neither party, of whether the Commissioner’s
regulations--so clear on this point--can trump a mere rule of
construction, we note that both the Supreme Court in FirsTier and
the District Court in Render carefully described a key reason for
allowing the premature filings in those cases to be effective:
lack of prejudice to the other party. See FirsTier, 498 U.S. at
273 (“certain premature notices do not prejudice the appellee”);
Render, 309 F. Supp. 2d at 944 (premature filing of complaint
“caused no conceivable prejudice to the opposing party”).
Allowing premature CDP requests to be effective, in
contrast, would cause prejudice to the Commissioner. The IRS is
a bulk-processing organization that sends and receives hundreds
of millions of notices and returns each year. If the system is
to work, almost all of those notices and returns have to quickly
fit into pigeonholes (or their modern-day equivalent, the
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