Menu
Tax Notes logo

An IRC 6751 Decision Regarding the Initial Penalty Determination

Posted on June 10, 2019

In Palmolive Building Investors, LLC v. Commissioner, 152 T.C. No. 4 (2019) the Tax Court addressed one of the issues presented by the language of IRC 6751 regarding the initial determination of a penalty. Unlike the Walquist case involving IRC 6751 discussed here, the petitioner in the Palmolive case had excellent counsel and pursued the case without the distractions present in Walquist. Still, the taxpayer lost in is effort to knock out the penalty for IRS’s failing to follow the statute.

The petitioner in Palmolive filed a partnership return claiming a huge charitable contribution for a façade easement. In an earlier decision the Tax Court sustained the IRS determination disallowing the deduction. At issue in this opinion is the correctness of the related penalty determination. The IRS not only disallowed the claimed contribution deduction, but the revenue agent (RA) examining the case asserted two penalties in the alternative – a 40% penalty for gross valuation misstatement and a 20% negligence penalty. The RA obtained the approval of the immediate supervisor on a Form 5701 attached to the Notice of Proposed Adjustments.

Petitioner requested an Appeals conference. The Appeals Officer (AO) proposed issuing an FPAA asserting four alternative penalties: the two proposed by the RA plus penalties for substantial understatement and substantial valuation misstatement. The AO’s immediate supervisor signed Form 5402-c on the approval line and an FPAA was eventually issued determining the imposition of all four penalties in the alternative.

An issue that the court does not decide concerns whether the 40% gross valuation misstatement also includes the 20% penalty. The IRS position was that approval of the 40% penalty necessarily included the lesser penalty if the valuation ultimately supported the lower penalty amount. Taxpayer contested this assertion. The court found that since the notice issued by Appeals included both and since the court found the additional penalties added by Appeals met the requirements of IRC 6751, deciding the issue of whether the 40% penalty necessarily included the lower penalty was unnecessary here.

The Tax Court begins its analysis by noting the statutory language.

Section 6751(b)(1) provides: No penalty under this title shall be assessed unless the initial determination of such assessment is personally approved (in writing) by the immediate supervisor of the individual making such determination * * * .

At issue here is whether there can be more than one initial determination. The court noted that Congress sought to keep the IRS from using penalties as a bargaining chip in passing IRC 6751. The court finds:

on the undisputed facts, we hold that the “initial determinations” are those by Agent Wozek on or before July 2008 and by Appeals Officer Holliday in June 2014.

Petitioner argued that the RA did not propose and his supervisor did not approve all of the penalties. Therefore, because the RA’s determination was the initial determination, the subsequent determination by the AO does not meet the requirement of the statute. The court dismisses this argument stating:

Section 6751(b)(1) includes no requirement that all potential penalties be initially determined by the same individual nor at the same time.

Petitioner also argued that the IRS failed to follow its Internal Revenue Manual provisions which require that the case history reflect the decision to impose the penalty. The court replied that the IRM

does not have the force of law, is not binding on the IRS, and confers no rights on taxpayers.’” Thompson v. Commissioner, 140 T.C. 173, 190 n.16 (2013) (quoting McGaughy v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2010-183, slip op. at 20).

The court found that the supervisory approval need not occur on a specific form and that the form used need not reference the employee recommending the imposition of a penalty.

This decision gives the IRS much more flexibility in meeting the requirement of IRC 6751 than the taxpayer’s arguments would have permitted. The IRS still must show supervisory approval at each level at which a new penalty is imposed, but the decision provides it with much latitude in how to accomplish the approval. The term “initial” in the statute does not limit the IRS to getting it right at the first step or else forgoing a penalty. The decision lines up with the purpose of the statute. Since the statute provides a difficult procedural roadmap for the court to follow, perhaps having the decision line up with the purpose is the primary goal to seek when writing an opinion on this topic.

DOCUMENT ATTRIBUTES
Subject Areas / Tax Topics
Authors
Copy RID