In case you were wondering, the US Tax Court is a tougher crowd than a Senate confirmation panel.

A federal court rejected an attempt by two Ohio residents to use the so-called TurboTax defense that Timothy Geithner relied on to help win Senate confirmation as U.S. Treasury Secretary.

The U.S. Tax Court in Washington rejected an appeal of accuracy-based penalties assessed by the Internal Revenue Service on Kenneth and Linda Hopson, who claimed they relied on tax-return preparation software that failed to detect income they had omitted from their 2006 federal tax returns.

“Petitioners were not permitted to bury their heads in the sand and ignore their obligation to ensure that their tax return accurately reflected their income,” the court said in an opinion issued yesterday. “In the end, reliance on tax return preparation software does not excuse petitioners’ failure to review their 2006 tax return.”

Emphasis mine, all mine, and you can’t have it.