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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