Your ticket to tax court is either a statutory “Notice of Deficiency” following an audit, or a “Notice of Determination” following a Collections Due Process (CDP) hearing. Receipt of either of these notices allows you to petition the court for a decision. The...
The term ‘standard of review’ refers to how the court looks at various types of cases, what it will be looking for and what evidence it will consider in examining the case. The court applies different standards in examining different types of cases. It...
The procedures and requirements for writing a tax court petition are in Rule 34b of the Tax Court Rules. The rules for filing a petition in a lien or levy action are found in Title XXXII of the Rules. You can download the rules from the Tax Court website or order them...
If the amount in dispute is under $50,000, you may opt to have your case tried under the “Small Case Procedures.” See Section 7463. The advantage is that there are a few more places in the country where they try small cases, so you might not have to travel as...
Reading the Answer to the petition without the petition in front of you won’t make any sense. The respondent’s Answer simply admits, denies, or objects to statements made in the petition by paragraph number without repeating the statements. When you receive the...
Sometimes the respondent will make allegations against you in his answer that were not made in the notice. If he does, you have 45 days to deny those allegations with a Reply to the Answer. If you don’t reply, respondent can move the court to deem any allegations he...
You have 30 days from the service date of the Answer to file a motion concerning it. The service date is the date on the Certificate of Service that accompanies all formal court documents. I’ve seen and filed a number of motions seeking explanations of vague,...
After the Service has answered the petition and you’ve replied if necessary, the next step is often an appeals conference with the IRS Office of Appeals. Appeals is in theory a separate and independent branch of the Service, but for all practical purposes, if you are...
