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Petitioner contends that his failure to pay was due to
reasonable cause and not due to willful neglect because he "did
nothing wrong"; envelopes merely got switched when he attempted
to mail his June 2000 estimated payment to respondent, petitioner
contends. If petitioner and/or his daughter had merely
misdirected the June estimated tax payment to the Missouri
Department of Revenue and then promptly made a remittance to
respondent when the State of Missouri made the refund, we might
be more sympathetic, given respondent's published guidance on
reasonable cause in the case of mailing errors such as
insufficient postage and incorrect addressing. However, that is
not what happened here.
The parties have stipulated that the State of Missouri
refunded the $32,157 misdirected payment (plus interest) to
petitioner "in 2001". Respondent's Form 4340, Certificate of
Assessments, Payments and Other Specified Matters, covering
petitioner's 2000 income tax liability, records a payment by
petitioner of $32,157 on November 5, 2002.5 Thus, there was a
5 Petitioner claims that he received the refund from
Missouri in May 2002 and sent a check to the IRS approximately 2
weeks thereafter. In conflict with this version of events is the
Form 4340 for 2000, which records the payment as received on Nov.
5, 2002. Petitioner's claim is not corroborated, such as by a
canceled check evidencing payment to the IRS at the time he
claims. The Form 4340, by contrast, is presumptive evidence of
its contents, barring a showing of its irregularity, which
petitioner has not made. See Hansen v. United States, 7 F.3d
137, 138 (9th Cir. 1993); Craig v. Commissioner, 119 T.C. 252,
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