Limiting the Right to Contest the Underlying Tax Liability in a Collection Due Process Case

The IRS sent Mr. Onyango a notice of deficiency. They sent it to his last known address and, as required by statute, sent it by certified mail. The postal service made several attempts to deliver the certified correspondence. Mr. Onyango did not pick up his mail and did not follow the instructions on the certified mail delivery cards to come to the post office and sign for the notice of deficiency. The evidence suggested that he eventually reacted to the certified mail and checked with the post office but by that time the post office had returned the notice to the IRS. He lived at the address to which the notice was mailed and could have picked up the notice had he sought to do so.

Because he did not pick up the notice of deficiency, he did not file a Tax Court petition within 90 days of the notice. Because he did not file a Tax Court petition, the IRS assessed the liability against him and eventually began the collection process. Because he did not pay the liability after receiving notices from the IRS regarding the outstanding liability, the IRS eventually sent a notice of intent to levy in which he received CDP rights. He timely filed a CDP request with Appeals and subsequently received a notice of determination sustaining the proposed levy. From the notice of determination he timely filed a petition with the Tax Court challenging the merits of the assessed liability pursuant to IRC 6330(c)(2)(B) asserting that he did not receive the notice of deficiency within 90 days.

Section 6330 (c)(2)(B) provides that a taxpayer in a CDP hearing may “raise at the hearing challenges to the existence or amount of the underlying tax liability for any tax period if the person did not receive any statutory notice of deficiency for such tax liability or did not otherwise have an opportunity to dispute such tax liability.” The IRS argued that this provision did not give a taxpayer the right to challenge the merits of the underlying liability on the basis of non-receipt of the notice of deficiency if the taxpayer chose not to pick up his mail. It argued that here the failure in receipt resulted directly from the taxpayer’s choice and not any failure of delivery and that any of his testimony contrary to that conclusion was not credible and “should be given no weight.”

The Court agreed with the IRS that Mr. Onyango’s testimony lacked credibility in certain respects. It accepted his testimony that he did not know about the certified mail notices and that when he went to the post office the certified mail had already been returned to the IRS. It found that he stayed at the residence to which the notice was mailed approximately 30-40% of the time and simply declined to check for his mail.

Without going to the record, I remain unclear as to the aspects of Mr. Onyango’s testimony contradicting the conclusion that he failed to pick up the mail despite having the opportunity to do so. Enough testimony came out on direct or cross to make it clear that he lived a fair percentage of the time at the address where the certified mail was delivered and that he did not present the certified mail to the post office until too late. Denying a CDP petitioner the opportunity to argue the merits of tax liability seems consistent with the original intention of the statute. It seems odd that it has taken over 15 years since the first CDP case became a possibility to get to this case. The Court issued the opinion as a “full” Tax Court opinion indicating that the Tax Court felt the opinion broke new ground. This case will no doubt get used regularly in the future to bar petitioners seeking to argue the merits of their tax liability in CDP cases.

The area of lack of receipt of the notice has come up in a number of cases. In Montgomery v. Comm’r, 122 T.C. 1 (2004), the Tax Court concluded that the underlying tax liability described in § 6330(c)(2)(B) includes self-assessed amounts and therefore the statute supports a taxpayer challenge from a taxpayer filing a balance due return because such a taxpayer has not received a notice of deficiency in connection with the liability and the taxpayer has not had an opportunity to dispute the liability (See also, Cooley v. Comm’r, 2004 T.C. 49 (2004)). In Sherer v. C.I.R., T.C. Memo. 2006-29, the Tax Court allowed the taxpayer to contest underlying tax liability at pre-levy collection due process hearing, based on the fact that he did not receive the notice of deficiency because he did not live at either of two addresses where the notice had been sent, rather than being due to deliberate refusal of delivery. In Tatum Jr. v. Comm’r, T.C. Memo 2003-15, where the taxpayers did not deliberately refuse service and the Post Office made only one attempt to deliver a deficiency notice, the Tax Court held that the taxpayers should have been allowed to challenge their underlying tax liabilities at the CDP hearing. Frequently, the IRS or the Court faces the issue of why the taxpayer did not receive it but no previous case took head on the taxpayer’s own failure as the basis for non-receipt and the consequences of the taxpayer’s inaction.

The ability of taxpayers to get another bite at the tax merits apple through the CDP process exists because Congress heard complaints from numerous taxpayers in the period leading up to the legislation in 1998 that the IRS sought to collect from them and they never had the opportunity to contest the underlying liability. Based on the legislative history, the reason for the change was that the Senate Finance Committee believed that “taxpayers are entitled to protections in dealing with the IRS that are similar to those they would have in dealing with any other creditor. . . . [T]he Committee believe[d] that the IRS should afford taxpayers adequate notice of collection activity and a meaningful hearing before the IRS deprives them of their property.”  S. Rep. No. 105-174, at 67 (1998). Additionally, Nina Olson and tax procedure expert Michael Saltzman testified in support of introducing a third party to protect both the government’s and the taxpayers’ rights in the tax collection process.

The goal behind (c)(2)(B) had to be to help those taxpayers to whom the IRS had properly mailed the notice of deficiency to their last known address but the notice never made its way to the taxpayer. I say this because if the notice was not mailed to the taxpayer’s last known address the taxpayer could obtain redress by attacking the validity of the assessment. So, Congress must have put (c)(2)(B) into the code with the thought that properly mailed notices did not reach the intended recipient frequently enough for this to warrant a statutory exception.

Cases such as this, where the taxpayer alleges non-receipt despite the fact the IRS properly sent the notice have always seemed troublesome because the “why” of the non-receipt always left one wondering. Taking the issue head on and putting some of the responsibility for the non-receipt on the taxpayer as a necessary predicate to obtaining the ability to contest the merits makes great sense. Otherwise, taxpayers have a path to gaming the system. This issue will almost always turn on the taxpayer’s credibility and makes for a slightly uncomfortable hearing. The IRS will never know why a taxpayer did not act with the 90 days of the notice of deficiency. I expect more push back on the taxpayer’s credibility on this issue after the Tax Court’s opinion in this case.