- 10 -
amount of the assessment." Sec. 301.6203-1, Proced. & Admin.
Regs. Siquieros was arguing only that she herself shouldn’t be
liable for her employer’s failure to pay over the taxes because
she was only a secretary.
The Baltics are not arguing that the IRS is going after the
wrong person. Neither Baltic, for example, is claiming innocent-
spouse relief; they dispute only the amount of tax due. Which
is, of course, exactly what they could have challenged by filing
a petition when they got their notice of deficiency. We
therefore unequivocally hold that a challenge to the amount of
the tax liability made in the form of an OIC-DATL by a taxpayer
who has received a notice of deficiency is a challenge to the
underlying tax liability. Because the Baltics already had their
chance to challenge that liability, section 6330(c)(2)(B) bars
them from challenging it again.8
That leaves only the settlement officer's refusal to wait
until the IRS reviewed the OIC-DATL and completed its audit
8 The Baltics also argue that section 301.6330-1(e)(3), Q&A-
E9, Proced. & Admin. Regs., grants discretion to IRS employees to
consider challenges to liability despite section 6330(c)(2)(B)
and ask us to review for abuse of discretion the decision by the
settlement officer not to review their liability. We've already
held that the Code itself limits the power of both the
Commissioner and our Court to reconsider liability issues.
Nichols v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2007-5. Here, the
determination did not address the precluded issue of liability,
and the Baltics’ challenge amounts to nothing more than a
roundabout effort to challenge what they’re prevented from
challenging on appeal.
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: March 27, 2008