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VASQUEZ, J., dissenting: As pointed out by Judge Swift, in
Davis v. Commissioner, 115 T.C. 35, 41-42 (2000), we created the
informal setting and procedures for section 6330 hearings.
Subsequent jurisprudence has rendered the holding of Davis
obsolete and has eviscerated the Court’s section 6330 review
function. The current state of section 6330 jurisprudence leaves
us with two equally unpalatable choices: (1) Overrule Davis and
require the IRS to conduct more formal hearings in order to
create a record sufficient for the Court to fulfill our review
function, or (2) steadily become more handcuffed and less able to
meaningfully review section 6330 cases. I believe either of
these eventualities is contrary to the purpose of section 6330.
After a year of intensive work, 12 days of public hearings,
three field hearings, and hundreds of hours in private sessions
with public and private sector experts, academics, and citizens’
groups, the Report of the National Commission on Restructuring
the Internal Revenue Service: A Vision for a New IRS (IRS
Restructuring Report), at v-vi, 43, 67 (1997), concluded that the
IRS needed to be more accountable, and that a significant part of
improving the system would be taxpayers’ ability to seek redress
or review of IRS actions in the courts expeditiously. The IRS
Restructuring Report was the foundation for the Internal Revenue
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