Penalty Abatement: Reasonable Cause 

Posted on by katemley

IRC 6724


While the taxpayer failed to succeed on its reasonable cause arguments for abatement of penalties in Dealers Auto Auction of Southwest LLC v. Comm’r, at T.C. Memo 2025-38, filed April 28, 2025, the case provides some insight regarding IRS denials of abatements based on nondelegable duty arguments.  This practitioner has had many information return penalty cases over the past few years, so it is not surprising to see a case related to a penalty associated with filing an information return. In this case, the return at issue was a Form 8300 which is required to be filed to report cash payments received by a trade or business when the cash payment is over $10,000.  The taxpayer regularly sells automobiles through an auction house and regularly receive over $10,000 cash payments from buyers.  The case explains all of their processes and filings.  Unfortunately for the taxpayer, they had a bumpy filing history.  They seem well aware of the requirement to file, but for a variety of reasons, could not completely comply.  Of interest in this summary is the Court’s commentary on the IRS position that the duty to file an information return is a nondelegable duty and thus essentially no abatement of penalties can be had.  The Court found the IRS’s argument to be “unpersuasive.” The taxpayers in this case had some facts associated with reliance on software.  The IRS argued that even if the taxpayer relied on software, it would not qualify for reasonable cause because the duty to file information returns is not delegable.  While the taxpayer ultimately failed to obtain relief, the Court made an effort to illustrate that the IRS conclusion was incorrect.  The Court stated that software malfunctions can qualify as a failure beyond the filer’s control when it is shown the taxpayer used the software correctly.  Additionally, there is no preclusion in Treasury Regulation Section 301.6724-1(c)(1)(ii) to find that a software malfunction could be a failure beyond the filer’s control, and further, the Internal Revenue Manual provides at 20.1.7.12.1(24) that failures related to software and hardware can be failures beyond the filer’s control for purposes of a reasonable cause defense. It may take effort, but the point of this is that it is possible to overcome the U.S. Supreme ruling of United States v. Boyle, 469 U.S. 241(1985) that is the IRS go to for the premise that a taxpayer cannot be excused for timely filing by relying on an agent. 

Penalty Abatement—Preparer Reliance

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IRC 6662

The Tax Court held in Lucell Trammer, III & Sharonda M. Trammer v. Comm’r of Internal Revenue, Docket No. 6615-22, issued March 14, 2023 that the taxpayers had met the reasonable cause exception of IRC Section 6664(c)(1) that provides relief from the accuracy related penalties assessed against them under IRC Section 6662.  The taxpayers filed returns for 2019 and 2020 – taking their receipts to a return preparer who decided how and where to report items on their returns.  As it turned out, some personal expenses, like mortgage interest, were reported multiple times.  Some personal expenses were claimed as business expenses. Ultimately, the IRS issued a notice of deficiency assessing tax and accuracy related penalties under IRC 6662(a). The Court indicated that relief from an accuracy-related penalty only applies if the taxpayers’ reliance on the return preparer meets Treasury Regulation Section 1.6664-4(b), as follows: (1) the advisor was a competent professional who had sufficient expertise to justify reliance, (2) the taxpayer provided necessary and accurate information to the advisor, and (3) the taxpayer actually relied in good faith on the advisor’s judgment.  Though the taxpayer was held liable for the tax adjustment, the Court ruled that the accuracy related penalties would not apply to the years at issue. 

Failure to File Returns

Posted on by katemley

I.R.C. section 6651

The United States Court of Federal Claims granted summary judgment in favor of the IRS to sustain penalties in the case of Shih-Fu Peng and Roisin Heneghan v. The United States, No 16-1263T, Filed October 24, 2018. The plaintiffs were assessed late filing penalties in relation to their 2012 tax return. They allege that their return was filed late due to four reasons: 1) The father of one of the taxpayers died in July 2012, 2) their child was born in January 2013, 3) The grandmother of one of the taxpayers died in October 2013, and 4) their accountant was at times unresponsive while trying to prepare their 2012 return. Of course the Court applied the standard of I.R.C . 6651(a)(1)-(2) in determining if relief was appropriate – was the failure to file due to reasonable cause and not due to willful neglect? Their argument relating to the accountant failed as they only argued that he was the reason they did not file their extension. Ultimately, their return was filed after the extension due date. As such, even if they were correct, their return was still filed late. As for the other events that delayed the taxpayers’ filing, the Court indicated that it has recognized personal hardship as reasonable cause for failure to timely fund under some circumstances – such as an illness or debilitation that, because of its severity or timing, make it virtually impossible for the taxpayer to comply. The Court also explained that a taxpayer could supply evidence of incapacity caused by mental or emotional circumstances. Unfortunately for these taxpayers, it was not clear that their life events made it “virtually impossible,” for them to comply with the filing deadline. As such, no relief was granted.