Tax Court Administrative Orders on Trials in Pandemic Times (6/1/20)

Readers of this blog will be interested in two orders of the Tax Court issued last week:

• Administrative Order No. 2020-02 on Remote Court Proceedings During COVID-19 Pandemic, here.  The order attaches sample Notice of Setting Case for Trial and Standing Pretrial Order (with Pretrial Memorandum Form) for regular cases as small cases and a Getting Ready for Trial Checklist.  The order says:

Given the ongoing uncertainties and the Court’s desire to continue essential operations, on May 29, 2020, the Court adopted procedures for conducting Court proceedings remotely. These procedures will be in effect until further notice. Sample orders and notices incorporating these procedures are attached to this Administrative Order and will be posted on the Court’s website under “Forms”. 

Public access to the Court’s remote proceedings will be made available via realtime  audio with dial-in information for each session posted on the Court website. 

This Order is effective immediately and shall continue in effect until terminated by this Court.

• Administrative Order No. 2020-03 on Limited Entry of Appearance Procedures, Effective June 1, 2020, here.

Bob Probasco, here, of the Texas A&M Law School has an excellent Guest Blogger posting -- Significant Changes For Tax Litigation (Procedurally Taxing Blog 6/1/20), here.  So I won’t re-create the wheel here.  Bob does ask readers of the PT posting to offer their observations and questions.  So I encourage readers to watch the comments to Bob's posting and any replies that Bob or other readers may make to those comments.

Bob also noted in the posting:  

Another press release the same day informed us that on June 1st the court will resume accepting requests for copies of documents from non-parties.  But the process will be more flexible than before; requests can be made by phone and received by email.  You won’t have to – because you can’t – visit the court building in person.

I suspect that this "innovation" will survive the Pandemic--at least the email request or perhaps an internet form to make the request and any payment required.

A Detour:  I note that the order has a quote around Forms at the end of the sentence and places the period outside the endquote.  The secret Tax Court style manual, as it was explained to me, should have required that period (consistent with the American practice) to be placed inside the endquote.  See Updates on the Tax Court's Continued Love Affair with Periods Outside Quotations (1/4/20; 2/29/20), here.  Perhaps the style manual applies only to decisions and the like and not to administrative orders.  Or perhaps the explanation I received is incorrect.  At any rate, does the Tax Court really need to keep its style manual secret?