Opinion ID: 201691
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: standard of review

Text: 21 In a CDP case in which, as here, the amount of the underlying tax liability is not at issue, the trial court and the court of appeals review the determination of the IRS appeals officer for abuse of discretion. See Living Care, 411 F.3d at 625; Jones v. Comm'r, 338 F.3d 463, 466 (5th Cir.2003); H.R.Rep. No. 105-599, at 266 (1998) (legislative history of § 6330 indicating that where the underlying tax liability is not at issue, the appeals officer's determination as to the appropriateness of the collection activity will be reviewed using an abuse of discretion standard of review). 22 It is worth noting that in Living Care, the Sixth Circuit also stated that in providing for CDP hearings on what is ordinarily a scant record, Congress must have been contemplating a more deferential review of these tax appeals than of more formal agency decisions. Id. at 625. The court went on to conclude, without a clear abuse of discretion in the sense of clear taxpayer abuse and unfairness by the IRS, as contemplated by Congress, the judiciary will inevitably become involved on a daily basis with tax enforcement details that judges are neither qualified, nor have the time, to administer. Id. at 631. See also id. at 629 ([A]t the very least, in order to overturn the IRS decisions, we must be convinced that the type of taxpayer abuse that Congress sought to remedy [by enacting 26 U.S.C. § 6330] has occurred in the case.). 23 Our own analysis of the review standard and Congress's wishes are much in accord with those set forth by the Sixth Circuit in Living Care. It must be borne in mind that taxpayers have further recourse, besides the CDP hearing, to post-deprivation procedures. While Congress clearly wanted to prevent mere bureaucratic harassment, we do not understand it to have intended to strip the IRS of effective and reasonable tax collection procedures.