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vacated, it would force the Court to decide the case solely on
this paltry record. Noting the extreme disparity in legal
skills3 and its probable effect on the ability of the judicial
process to reach a just result, pro bono counsel stepped in to
represent Lovenguth. Those counsel completed their review of the
spotty record and have now moved to vacate or modify the
stipulations so that the case can be decided on its merits.
As reformulated by counsel, Lovenguth bases his claim for
interest abatement on three arguments. The first is that he was
incompetent to attend to his daily living activities, let alone
litigation in this court, when his original deficiency case was
dismissed for lack of prosecution. The second is that the
Commissioner failed to make the necessary efforts to contact him,
which resulted in a large portion of the interest Lovenguth was
forced to pay. His third claim, which is an extension of the
second, is that because his VA benefits were paid out of Treasury
funds and the IRS is part of the Treasury, the Commissioner
should have been able to locate him. Lovenguth believes that had
the Commissioner contacted him in a timely manner, he would have
been able to satisfy both his tax liability and the then much
smaller interest liability out of his lump-sum VA payment.
3 Here, for instance, is Lovenguth’s entire brief on the
merits, which he wrote in longhand: “I request my abatement of
be approved. The Dept. Treasury have been sending me my
compensation payment for 100 percent service-connection since
1991. IRS clearly knew my addresses.”
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Last modified: November 10, 2007