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refund,4 or res judicata5 may bar their claim. Flora v.
4 Notably, sec. 6330(e)(1) does not provide for the
suspension of the period of limitations for seeking a claim for
credit or refund pursuant to sec. 6511.
The very purpose of statutes of limitations in the tax
context is to bar the assertion of a refund claim after
a certain period of time has passed, without regard to
whether the claim would otherwise be meritorious. That
a taxpayer does not learn until after the limitations
period has run that a tax was paid in error, and that
he or she has a ground upon which to claim a refund,
does not operate to lift the statutory bar. [United
States v. Dalm, 494 U.S. 596, 609 n.7 (1990).]
It is very likely that after the time elapsed in the sec. 6330
proceedings most taxpayers’ refund claims would be barred by the
period of limitations contained in sec. 6511 or severely limited
or eliminated by the look-back rules of sec. 6511(b). This is so
because if taxpayers cannot obtain refunds as an outgrowth of a
sec. 6330 proceeding, as respondent suggests, no action taken by
a taxpayer as part of the sec. 6330 proceedings can be a claim
for refund pursuant to sec. 6511. See Commissioner v. Lundy, 516
U.S. 235, 249-250 (1996); Jackson v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo.
2002-44; sec. 301.6402-2(b)(1), Proced. & Admin. Regs.
5 The Supreme Court, in Commissioner v. Sunnen, 333 U.S.
591, 599 (1948), stated:
Income taxes are levied on an annual basis. Each year
is the origin of a new liability and of a separate
cause of action. Thus if a claim of liability or non-
liability relating to a particular tax year is
litigated, a judgment on the merits is res judicata as
to any subsequent proceeding involving the same claim
and the same tax year. * * *
Accordingly, because taxpayers can claim that they overpaid their
taxes (“paid more than was owed”) in a sec. 6330 case, majority
op. p. 18 note 19, the doctrine of res judicata might bar
taxpayers from initiating a refund suit in U.S. District Court or
the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. See Estate of Baumgardner v.
Commissioner, supra at 452; Newstat v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo.
2004-208 (res judicata applied to the overpayment claim in the
section 6330 case because it involved “the same cause of action”
(continued...)
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