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looming, July 8 was now just four business days away.
On July 8, without checking with Wells to see whether he was
available, Talbott set the hearing for Monday, July 19 at 8:00
a.m. PST, specifying that it would be by telephone.2 Wells
received this letter on July 14--almost a week later--and
immediately responded with another of his own. He explained that
he was unavailable on July 19 because he was under subpoena for a
trial in California State court beginning that very day. Wells
again complained about the short notice and his inability to
provide the requested documents in time. He also mentioned the
appeal to the Ninth Circuit and the subsequent settlement, and
wrote that he was attempting to obtain a copy of the settlement
agreement for Talbott.
Talbott did not receive Wells’s letter by the morning of
July 19, so he called Wells to begin the CDP hearing promptly at
8:00 a.m. Pacific time and left a voicemail message. Wells
called Talbott back as soon as he got the message, and ended up
leaving a voicemail of his own, again requesting additional time.
But Talbott had already drafted a notice of determination
sustaining the notice of intent to levy, and he didn’t change his
2 Wells makes much of California’s observance of daylight
saving time, arguing that there could be some confusion as to
what time this call was actually scheduled to begin. We
disagree. A reasonable person would understand “8:00 a.m. PST”
to mean simply “8:00 a.m. Pacific time.” We certainly refuse
to invalidate the determination because Talbott wrote “PST”
instead of “PDT.”
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Last modified: November 10, 2007