Back two years ago I predicted another silt-stir after Blake M. Adams, 160 T. C. 1, filed 1/24/23; see my blogpost “Section 7345 – Backdoor CDP?” of even date therewith, as my high-priced colleagues would say.

But Donald Ray Pierre, Sr., Docket No. 5178-24P, filed 2/28/25, isn’t that case. Here, a deficiency that bears all the signs of a clerical or arithmetic error on the 1040 for year at issue (failure to transpose an amount from Schedule 1 to 1040) gives rise to $83K of substantial tax delinquency.

Donald seeks discovery by motion, not having made informal or informal request. Judge Morrison blows that off: you can’t move to compel production of what you haven’t asked for before. Anyway, IRS makes the usual claim it gave Donald everything already.

But the real kicker is Judge Morrison’s reading of Adams, despite IRS being unable to produce either an original or copy of the 1040, nor a SND, nor a notice of arithmetic or clerical error.

“We held in Adams v. Commissioner, 160 T.C. at 12–15, that the IRS’s failure to mail a notice of deficiency is not the type of error that we can consider in a passport-certification case. Similarly, we cannot consider whether the IRS erred by failing to issue a notice of mathematical or clerical error. Thus, discovery is not warranted in this case as to whether the IRS complied with the requirements that it mail a notice of deficiency or issue a notice of mathematical or clerical error.” Order, at pp. 6-7.

So barring extreme IRS transcript glitches showing delinquency below statutory cutoff (like wrong numbers and years where SOL ran), there is nothing to litigate in passport grab cases.

No silt.