## Facts

- The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assessed a 100 percent tax penalty against Vosters.
- Before the assessment, Vosters sought an IRS appellate (Appeals) hearing.
- Vosters made the request orally rather than submitting a written protest.
- The IRS rejected the request because its published procedures—IRS Revenue Procedure 61-27—required a written protest letter as a prerequisite to an appellate hearing.
- Vosters claimed an IRS representative told him that an oral request was sufficient and that he relied on that statement.
- Vosters sued the United States seeking to invalidate the penalty, arguing that the IRS denied him an appellate hearing to which he was entitled.

## Issues

1. Whether the IRS’s assessment of a 100 percent tax penalty is invalid because the IRS refused to grant an Appeals hearing when the taxpayer requested the hearing orally, even though published IRS procedures required a written protest.
2. Whether an alleged statement by an IRS representative that an oral request was sufficient prevents the United States from enforcing the penalty when the taxpayer did not follow the published written-protest procedure.

## Decision

- The court ruled for the United States.
- The court treated Revenue Procedure 61-27’s written-protest requirement as a valid condition for obtaining an IRS appellate (Appeals) hearing.
- The court rejected Vosters’s attempt to invalidate the penalty based on his oral request and his claimed reliance on an IRS representative’s oral statement.
- The penalty assessment was upheld.

## Legal Principles

- The IRS may condition access to an administrative Appeals hearing on compliance with published procedural requirements, including submission of a written protest when required by the applicable revenue procedure.
- A taxpayer’s oral request for an Appeals hearing does not satisfy a published written-protest requirement.
- Informal oral statements by government employees generally do not override published IRS procedures or create an enforceable right to administrative review contrary to those procedures.
- The denial of an administrative Appeals hearing—where the taxpayer did not satisfy the agency’s published prerequisites—does not, by itself, invalidate an otherwise lawful penalty assessment.

## Conclusion

In *Vosters v. United States*, the court upheld the IRS’s 100 percent penalty assessment, concluding that the IRS properly required a written protest under Revenue Procedure 61-27 before providing an Appeals hearing and that the taxpayer’s oral request (and claimed reliance on an IRS employee’s oral statement) did not provide a basis to invalidate the penalty.


Vosters v. United States, 89-1 USTC ¶ 9387 (1989)