Opinion
20403-22L
09-25-2023
ENRIQUE RODRIGUEZ, Petitioner v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent
ORDER AND DECISION
Mark V. Holmes Judge
This case is on the Court's October 2, 2023 trial calendar for Hartford, Connecticut, and is Mr. Rodriguez's appeal from the IRS's decision to levy (i.e., take) his property to satisfy his 2017 tax bill after he asked for a collections-due-process hearing. On August 3, 2023, the IRS moved for summary judgment. We ordered Mr. Rodriguez to file any response he might have by September 5, 2023. A check of the Court's docket shows he hasn't filed a response.
The problem for Mr. Rodriguez is that the only issue he raised in his petition is that "I've explained several times that these taxes do not belong to me." He went on to explain that the payments that the IRS said ended up in his bank account really belonged to his father.
That makes his case a dispute about his tax liability-how much he owes to the IRS-and not a dispute about how the IRS gets to collect that liability. There is a section of the Internal Revenue Code that tells the Court that a taxpayer can challenge how much he owes the IRS in a collections-due-process case "if [he] did not receive any statutory notice of deficiency for such tax liability or did not otherwise have an opportunity to dispute such tax liability." IRC § 6330(c)(2)(B).
The IRS argues that Mr. Rodriguez did receive a "statutory notice of deficiency." It even attached a copy of the notice to its motion. And the notice has the same address where Mr. Rodriguez still lives.
The IRS also has a copy of the certified mailing list that shows that it mailed the notice of deficiency to Mr. Rodriguez back in March 2020. This is enough to create a presumption that the IRS properly mailed the notice of deficiency. See Welch v. United States, 678 F.3d 1371, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2012). This presumption means that Mr. Rodriguez had to present some evidence that he didn't actually get the notice of deficiency.
He has presented no such evidence.
This means that he cannot challenge his tax liability in this case, and the Court has to rule in favor of the IRS.
The Court recognizes that sometimes the IRS does make mistakes in a case like this, and Mr. Rodriguez may want to contact the part of the IRS that is called Audit Reconsideration. But in this case, it must be
ORDERED that respondent's August 3, 2023 motion is granted. It is also
ORDERED and DECIDED that respondent may proceed with the collection of petitioner's federal income tax liability for the tax year 2017, as described in the Notice of Determination Concerning Collection Actions under Section 6320 or 6330, dated July 21, 2022.