The review of a NOD from a CDP is always, or almost always, a recap of the record made at the CDP hearing. For that reason, a short but comprehensive checklist is a useful article in the practitioner’s toolkit.

Judge Mark V Holmes has a one-pager in Alan Courtney Preston, Docket No. 4050-20L, filed 6/29/21.

First, parties should stip to the contents of the record (s/a/k/a the “administrative record”). If they can’t, IRS should prepare an index of the documents they assert comprise the record, with a typical Judge Holmes addition: “The Court urges the IRS to make this index comprehensible to a nonlawyer.” Order, at p. 1.

Good luck with that one, Judge. Remember your eminent predecessor, the English Lord Chief Justice Campbell, writing in 1850: “There is nothing so dangerous as for one not of the craft to tamper with our freemasonry.”

Howbeit, once IRS delivers its index, petitioner has to “(1) provide the IRS with any evidence that he thinks should be added to the administrative record but is not in the IRS index and (2) list any documents in the IRS index that he thinks should not be in the administrative record.” Order, at p. 1.

Ultimately, if there’s no settlement, a trial will be limited to ascertaining the proper contents of the record, whether that shows IRS abused its discretion in sustaining the collection action, or whether to send it back to Appeals (“remand”) “because of new evidence or a change in circumstance since the collection due process hearing was held.” Order, at p. 1.

And not a dissed partitive genitive in sight.