My beloved Aunt Augusta presented me, some sixty years ago, with one of the myriad editions of Ebenezer Cobham Brewer’s classic Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. I have it still, and the 14th edition as well. They’ve been standbys and go-tos again and again, and this time old E. Cobham (as he was known to his friends) has a lesson for an AO at Appeals.

E. Cobham defined the English folk song “The Song The Old Cow Died On” as “Advice instead of relief; remonstrance instead of help.”

And Judge Haines sings the refrain (“consider, good cow, consider”) to Appeals in Synergy Environmental, Inc,.2014 T. C. Memo. 140, filed 7/15/14.

Synergy was a corporation whose philosophy was, apparently, “go for broke”, and they did. Synergy had about four years’ worth of unpaid tax, for which they offered $600 as an OIC, claiming they were stone cold dead.

IRS kicked the OIC, Synergy did nothing, but about a year later IRS laid a NFTL on Synergy. Synergy appealed the kicked OIC (then a year old), but Appeals said “no, and here’s a NOD”. Synergy petitions.

The NOD said “[b]ecause the Offer in Compromise was filed … a year earlier than the Request for a Collection Due Process Hearing for the filed federal tax lien any decision on the Offer in Compromise is covered under an earlier, separate work unit.” 2014 T. C. Memo. 140, at pp. 5-6.

Maybe so, but Judge Haines politely inquires “so what?”

“This statement does not find or decide anything with respect to the appropriateness of the …OIC. Hence, the determination does not contain all the statements required by section 301.6330-1(e)(3), Q&A-E8, Proced. & Admin. Regs.

“Additionally, the statement indicates that AO X did not consider petitioner’s … OIC as a collection alternative in making his determination pursuant to section 6320. That the … OIC was concurrently being considered in a separate appeal did not obviate the need to consider the … OIC in the section 6320 hearing. See secs. 6320(c), 6330(c)(2), (3), and (4). We think it is necessary to remand this case to Appeals for a supplemental hearing.” 2014 T. C. Memo. 140, at p. 6. (Name and footnotes omitted).

One of the omitted footnotes distinguishes Synergy from an earlier case, where an OIC had been the subject of a decided appeal. Here the OIC had never been previously disposed of by Appeals.

So Synergy gets an interesting second swing at the baseball.

And Appeals should heed the old song: “Consider, good cow, consider”.