I would have thought that, in the eight (count ’em, eight) years since The Great Chieftain of the Jersey Boys first tossed the Section 6751(b) Boss Hoss spanner in the Tax Court chopsworks (see my blogpost “Penalty Kick,” 7/17/14), IRS’ grunts would have gotten the message to reach for a CPAF at every exam, before they breathed a word of chops or first set finger to keyboard to write up the delictions discovered thereat; and that IRS’ counsel would first seek after said fully-executed CPAF the moment they got the admin record.

Apparently not, so far as STJ Diana L. (“Sidewalks of New York”) Leyden is concerned. Today she has five (count ’em, five) orders of like tenor to Maria Reilly &. James Reilly, Docket No. 29523-21S, filed 10/21/22. I picked Maria & Jim at random. All the orders are also small-claimers, and although I haven’t checked, I’ll wager all the petitioners are pro seses.

After a review of Section 6751(b), STJ Di admonishes IRS’ counsel.

“If respondent wishes to continue to assert the accuracy-related penalty under section 6662(a) in this case, he shall file a status report and attach thereto a Case History Transcript and any other relevant documents to demonstrate compliance with section 6751(b)(1). Alternatively, if respondent concludes that he did not comply with the requirement under section 6751(b)(1) with respect to the accuracy-related penalty under section 6662(a), he should consider conceding that penalty and notify the Court by filing a status report.” Order, at p. 2.

I suspect that if any petitioner is represented by one of the illustrious members of the ABA Tax Section, to which august body I do not belong, or even one of the ultrasophisticated readers of this my blog, such astute counsel would have raised want of Boss Hossery in the petition.

Word to IRS: Next July we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the enactment of The Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, whose Section 3306(a) first set forth the  Section 6751(b) we all know and love. Might it not be well to move from the last decade of the Twentieth Century into the second decade of the Twenty-First?