- 8 - the taxpayer to seek judicial review in the Tax Court or a District Court, depending upon the type of tax. In considering whether taxpayers are entitled to any relief from the Commissioner’s determination, this Court uses the following standard of review: where the validity of the underlying tax liability is properly at issue, the Court will review the matter on a de novo basis. However, where the validity of the underlying tax liability is not properly at issue, the Court will review the Commissioner’s administrative determination for abuse of discretion. [Sego v. Commissioner, 114 T.C. 604, 610 (2000).] II. Analysis A. Review of Underlying Liabilities Petitioner’s position throughout this proceeding has been that the liability the IRS is proposing to collect for 1991 is incorrect. Rather, petitioner maintains that his liability is more accurately reflected in the Form 1040 he allegedly filed for 1991, which reflected an overpayment of $471. Respondent asserts to the contrary that petitioner is precluded from challenging his underlying liability and has raised no other issues establishing an abuse of discretion. As previously indicated, section 6330(c)(2)(B) permits taxpayers to challenge the underlying liability in a collection proceeding only where they did not receive a notice of deficiency or otherwise have a prior opportunity to dispute the liability. A notice of deficiency for 1991 was sent to petitioner at 12079Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011