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record establishes that Driver, when she made her determination,
did know the specifics of petitioners’ age and financial status
(including the amount and sources of petitioners’ income) and
that she accepted the amount of the monthly medical expenses
reported to her by petitioners on their Form 433-A. Driver was
not required on her own initiative to increase arbitrarily the
amount of those reported medical expenses to reflect the
possibility that petitioners would incur additional medical costs
in the future. See Fargo v. Commissioner, supra at 710.
Driver’s analysis focused on petitioners’ $79,461 assessed
liability, and petitioners’ net realizable equity in assets was
$161,844, an amount that exceeds petitioners’ assessed liability
by $82,383. We do not consider Appeals to have abused its
discretion by rejecting petitioners’ claim that they will suffer
an economic hardship if required to pay more than their $11,552
offer.10
9(...continued)
would undermine compliance with the tax laws by taxpayers in
general, see sec. 301.7122-1(b)(3)(iii), Proced. & Admin. Regs.,
and Driver determined that petitioners failed to meet that
essential requirement.
10 Petitioners argue that Driver’s analysis is flawed in
that she considered only their assessed tax liability and not
their assessed and unassessed tax liability. In that Driver
concluded that petitioners’ offer of $11,552 in compromise of
their $79,461 assessed tax liability was unacceptable,
petitioners have not explained to our satisfaction how increasing
the stated assessed liability almost threefold to reflect the
amount of the unassessed liability would then make their offer
(continued...)
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