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impartiality requirement ensures that a hearing officer has had
no prior involvement in the determination and assessment of the
underlying tax liability that is the subject of the hearing.”
Criner v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2003-328. Our dispositions to
date have relied principally on the fact that the Appeals
employee personally “did not participate in, and was not involved
in, any previous Appeals Office hearing” concerning the tax
periods that were the subject of those cases. Day v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2004-30; Harrell v. Commissioner, T.C.
Memo. 2003-271. Our cases have not explored the contours of the
exception for prior involvement in earlier section 6320 or 6330
proceedings.
Nor is jurisprudence from other courts particularly
enlightening. Few cases seem to address the meaning of prior
involvement, much less in the context in which it is framed here.
Moreover, some of what little exists is at least arguably more
restrictive than the statute itself and, accordingly, offers
minimal assistance. For example, in Cox v. United States, 345 F.
Supp. 2d 1218, 1224 (W.D. Okla. 2004), the District Court
remanded a case to Appeals on unrelated procedural grounds with
the following instruction: “The court finds that, at least in
the circumstances presented here, the statute’s requirement that
the presiding officer must have had no prior involvement with the
unpaid tax disqualifies the original appeals officer from re-
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