Litigating IRS Penalty Approval

November 16, 2022  |  New York Law Journal

Each year, the Internal Revenue Service assesses billions of dollars in civil penalties against taxpayers. By statute, before penalties can be assessed, an IRS agent must obtain the approval of his or her supervisor. In my latest article for the New York Law Journal, “Litigating IRS Penalty Approval,” I discuss the different approaches taken by the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Circuit Courts of Appeals with respect to the timing of the required approval and note that practitioners considering a challenge to penalties based on the lack of supervisory approval need to be cognizant of the precedent in the Circuit in which their client resides.

Litigating IRS Penalty Approval (pdf | 276.55 KB)