While Lakepoint‘s tale of backdated Boss Hossery is grabbing headlines, lower-profile cases are surfacing wherein IRS has been a wee bit less than candid and meticulous with its SNODs and Boss Hossery.

Ex-Ch J Maurice B (“Mighty Mo”) Foley slugs IRS thus: “[IRS’] conduct falls woefully short of our expectations for practitioners who regularly appear before this Court. Respondent’s counsel knew that the Answer Notice was the byproduct of an undisclosed reconstruction process. Counsel failed, in respondent’s first Status Report, to inform the Court of the reconstruction process. When questioned about the authenticity of the Answer Notice, respondent’s counsel admitted he had knowingly submitted a reconstructed document.

“We have no confidence that the slipshod-cut-and-paste Status Report Notice presented to the Court was the version of the notice of deficiency actually sent to petitioner.” R. J. Channels, Inc., T. C. Memo. 2023-109, filed 8/28/23, at p. 5.

And this case is not a one-off: “…respondent’s ‘common practice’ of reconstructing notices of deficiency is particularly disconcerting. Because respondent’s reconstruction has created doubt as to whether respondent determined the accuracy-related penalty in the notice of deficiency sent to petitioner, striking the revised Proposed Stipulated Decision is warranted. The parties shall file a revised decision document.” T. C. Memo. 2023-109, at p. 5.

IRS claims the COVID lockdown, which separated teletubbies from the paperwork, made them go to the scanned PDFs to do it. Maybe so, but tell the judge what you’re doing.

You can read for yourselves the back-and-forth wherein IRS’ counsel explain their reconstructionism.

I’ve had cases where documents needed to be reconstructed, but insisted that clients explicitly and conspicuously so label them, and document the circumstances which necessitated the same.

IRS wanted Section 6662 chops and a stipulated deficiency. I wonder what they will wind up getting.

Bloomberg, please copy.