- 12 -
that the knowledge factor weighed in David’s favor. We thus need
to look elsewhere to decide at which time the Commissioner should
have measured David’s knowledge.
The first place we look is at a case where a wife who
requested relief didn’t know about an IRA distribution that her
husband failed to report when she signed the original return.
She learned about the distribution only after her husband’s
death, and then filed an amended return that corrected the
omission. In that case, the Commissioner also measured her
knowledge at the time she signed the amended return. We found
his determination to be an abuse of discretion because:
It is unpersuasive to argue, as does
respondent, that petitioner’s voluntary
filing of an amended 1996 return and her
attendant payment of the delinquent taxes
attributable to the omission of income
from the original 1996 return militate
against equitable relief simply because
she had to have known of the omission
before she filed the amended return and
made the payment.
Rosenthal v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2004-89.
We acknowledge that in Rosenthal the requesting spouse paid
the taxes she owed on the omitted income when she filed her
amended return, but we find that this fact does not distinguish
David’s case--in both cases the innocent spouses were ignorant of
the key facts at the time they signed the original return.
A second place we can look to for help is in section
6015(b). That section gives relief when a spouse is reasonably
Page: Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next
Last modified: November 10, 2007