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return’s due date, it is divisible only taxpayer with a refund claim should Contributor
where the taxpayer receives erroneous carefully consider whether the claim
advice before the due date of the return. includes all the arguments that could be James A. Beavers, CPA, CGMA,
Since the Oosterwijks received the erro- made to support the refund requested J.D., LL.M., is The Tax Adviser’s tax
neous advice from Paszkiewicz after the and all the facts necessary to support technical content manager. For more
due date of their tax return, they could those arguments. information about this column, contact
not have reasonable cause for relief from Oosterwijk, No. CCB-21-1151 (D. thetaxadviser@aicpa.org.
their late filing of the return. Md. 1/27/22) ■
Because the court held that no
reasonable cause could arise from
Paszkiewicz’s advice due to its timing, it Personal Financial
did not have to determine whether the Planning Section
advice could have given rise to reasonable
cause for the Oosterwijks. It nonethe-
less addressed the issue and found that Tax Section
because the advice was not reasonable, it
could not be the basis for the reasonable-
cause exception.
For tax advice to be reasonable, it
cannot depend on legal assumptions
that are unreasonable. In Baer, 150 Aging clients
Fed. Cl. 761 (Fed. Cl. 2020), the Court 65+
of Federal Claims held that the IRS’s need you more
provision of explicit instructions on
the face of a form renders any belief than ever.
to the contrary unreasonable. Thus,
advice contrary to such an instruction
Will you step up to the challenge?
is unreasonable, and a taxpayer’s reli-
ance on the advice cannot constitute
reasonable cause. In the Oosterwijks’
case, Paszkiewicz’s advice that paying 65+ 5 1
their tax due and filing an extension
request after the due date would stop population key areas professional
the accrual of late-filing penalties con-
tradicted the text of Form 4868, which All baby boomers They need help with You can be their
will be 65 or over tax, retirement, estate, primary point of
states that the Form 4868 must be filed
by 2030.* risk management and contact.
by the regular due date of the taxpayer’s
investments.
return for the taxpayer to receive an *U.S. Census Bureau
automatic extension. As a result, the
court found that the advice was unrea-
sonable, and the Oosterwijks’ reliance Get started with free tools and resources at
on it could not establish that they had aicpa.org/growadvisoryservices
reasonable cause for failing to timely
file their return.
Reflections Founded by AICPA and CIMA, the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants
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The substantial-variance doctrine can
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not shy about asserting the doctrine.
Consequently, practitioners assisting a

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