Anastasios M. Smalis v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

Whether the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment permits the Internal Revenue Service to assess and collect a tax deficiency when the government cannot establish that the statutorily required Notice of Deficiency was properly mailed to the taxpayer, thereby depriving the taxpayer of the pre-payment judicial review guaranteed by 26 U.S.C. §§ 6212 and 6213. Section 6213(a) of the Internal Revenue Code guarantees taxpayers a prepayment forum in the United States Tax Court upon issuance of a statutory Notice of Deficiency. Here, the Internal Revenue Service represented—and the Tax Court accepted—that no Notice of Deficiency was ever issued to Petitioner. The Tax Court accordingly dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, leaving Petitioner without access to the prepayment review Congress designed as the principal safeguard against erroneous assessments. Consistent with this Court’s instruction that pro se filings are to be liberally construed and not defeated by technical formalisms, see Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520-21 (1972), the question presented is: Whether the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment is violated when the Internal Revenue Service proceeds in a manner that deprives a taxpayer of meaningful pre-deprivation judicial review while simultaneously acknowledging that no statutory Notice of Deficiency—the jurisdictional predicate for Tax Court review—was ever issued. Whether the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment permits the Internal Revenue Service to assess and collect taxes and deprive a taxpayer of property where the government admits that no statutory Notice of Deficiency was ever issued, yet the Tax Court and court of appeals dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction. (W II PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING Petitioner is Anastasios Smalis, who was the petitioner in the United States Tax Court and the appellant in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Respondent is the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who was the respondent in the courts below. There are no other parties.