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prior to the amendment of section 6015(e)(1) over a stand-alone
section 6015(f) “nondeficiency case”, it would have expressly and
clearly so stated in the legislative history of that amendment.
It did not. The silence of Congress is strident.16
I turn now to the Eighth Circuit’s opinion in Bartman to
explain why I am not persuaded by that opinion that the Court
should overrule Ewing I. As discussed above, the Court Opinion
points out, Court op. p. 14 note 7, that the Eighth Circuit in
Bartman interchangeably used terms such as “determination of a
deficiency”, “issue of a notice of deficiency”, and “assessed
deficiency”, even though those terms are not synonymous in the
Federal tax law. The Eighth Circuit in Bartman also
interchangeably used those terms with the phrase “a deficiency
has been asserted” in section 6015(e)(1), evidently having
concluded that all of those terms are synonymous in the Federal
tax law.17 As the legislative history of section 6015(e)(1)
16Senators Feinstein and Kyl recently introduced S. 3523,
109th Cong., 2d Sess., sec. 1 (2006), that would clarify that the
Court has jurisdiction under sec. 6015(e) to review all claims
for relief under sec. 6015(f). In introducing that bill, Senator
Feinstein stated: “this bill clarifies the statute’s original
intent”. 152 Cong. Rec. S5962 (daily ed. June 15, 2006).
17To illustrate, the Eighth Circuit stated in Bartman:
The IRS did not determine a deficiency against
Bartman for tax year 1997. Bartman cites Ewing v.
Comm'r, 118 T.C. 494, 2002 WL 1150775 (2002), where the
tax court found that it had jurisdiction to review a
petition from a denial of a request for � 6015 relief,
(continued...)
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