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inadequate description under the preceding sentence shall not
invalidate such notice.” We conclude that petitioners’ reliance
on section 7522(a) is misplaced.
In Scar v. Commissioner, supra, the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Ninth Circuit (to which an appeal of this matter would
lie) held that the Commissioner must consider information
relating to a particular taxpayer before the Commissioner can be
said to have determined a deficiency with respect to that
taxpayer. In Scar, the taxpayers received a notice of deficiency
that disallowed a loss deduction from a partnership in which the
taxpayers owned no interest. The notice also revealed that the
Commissioner had computed the tax due using the highest marginal
tax rate without examining the return and without supplying any
basis for the applicability of that rate. The Court of Appeals
held that a notice of deficiency is invalid if it is clear from
the notice itself that the Commissioner had not reviewed the
taxpayers’ return or otherwise made a determination of a
deficiency with respect to the taxpayers’ liability for the
particular taxable year. Id. at 1370.
The Court of Appeals subsequently held that the rule
established in Scar applies only where the notice of deficiency
reveals on its face that the Commissioner failed to make a
determination. See Kantor v. Commissioner, 998 F.2d 1514, 1521-
1522 (9th Cir. 1993), affg. in part and revg. in part on another
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