David Bruce Billings - Page 10




                                       - 10 -                                         

           Weighs for Relief          Neutral            Weighs against               
                                                             Relief                   
          Nonrequesting        No divorce decree      Petitioner                      
          spouse responsible                          responsible for tax             
          for tax under                               under divorce decree            
          divorce decree                                                              
          Separated or                                                                
          divorced             Still married                                          
          Abuse present        No abuse present                                       
          These are not the only factors that either the Commissioner or we           
          can look at, but they are where we start.  Id.  In this case, the           
          parties contest only two factors: knowledge and significant                 
          benefit.                                                                    
          A.   Knowledge                                                              
               The basic problem in analyzing the Commissioner’s decision             
          that David flunks the knowledge factor is that the revenue                  
          procedure is quite unclear about when a person’s knowledge should           
          be measured.  The procedure tells us that the knowledge factor              
          weighs in favor of relief when:                                             
                    In the case of a liability that was properly                      
                    reported but not paid, the requesting spouse                      
                    did not know and had no reason to know that                       
                    the liability would not be paid.  In the case                     
                    of a liability that arose from a deficiency,                      
                    the requesting spouse did not know and had no                     
                    reason to know of the items giving rise to                        
                    the deficiency.                                                   
          Rev. Proc. 2000-15, sec. 4.03(1)(d), 2000-1 C.B. at 449.  The               
          first sentence in the quoted section would seem to be the one               
          that applies--since there’s no deficiency here--and it tells us             







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Last modified: November 10, 2007