Supreme Court Denies Cert in Murrin on Issue of Whether Taxpayer's Fraud is Required for § 6501(c)(1) Unlimited Statute of Limitations (6/22/26)

Today, the Supreme Court denied the petition for certiorari in Murrin v. Commissioner (Sup. Ct. No. 25-988), docket here. See Order List dated 6/22/26, here at p.3, The Third Circuit opinion from which Murrin sought cert was Murrin v. Commissioner, 158 F.4th 527 (3rd Cir. 2025), here.

The question presented in the petition here was:

Whether, under 26 U.S.C. § 6501(c)(1), the IRS may assess tax beyond the Code’s three-year limitations period based solely on the fraudulent intent of a third-party, even when the taxpayer herself neither intended to evade tax nor knew of any wrongdoing.

The question as framed by the SG in the Commissioner’s Brief in Opposition here was:

Whether the indefinite limitations period in 26 U.S.C. 6501(c)(1) applies to a false or fraudulent return prepared by a tax return preparer who acted with the intent to evade tax.

Notice the none-too-subtle rephrasing by the SG’s office to limit the question to the tax return preparer rather than any other person whose fraud infected the return (such as, most prominently, tax shelter promoters and implementers). I discuss that reframing in Update on Murrin Petition for Cert re Unlimited Civil Statute of Limitations for Non-Taxpayer Fraud Reported on Tax Return (Federal Tax Procedure Blog 5/19/26), here. The denial of cert leaves that difference in framing unresolved. However, if the Government is serious about its reframing above (as discussed in the blog), the IRS may not assert the unlimited statute in § 6501(c)(1) where the fraud on the return is not the taxpayer’s or the tax return preparer’s.

For a link to all posts mentioning Murrin, see here (by relevance) and here (by date).