Good Review of Points Previously Covered in Class (9/28/15)

Lua v. United States, 2015 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1235 (9/25/15), here, offers a good review of concepts we have studied in this case.

In Lua, upon completion of the audit, the unsophisticated taxpayers who did not have a representative signed a Form 4549 Income Tax Examination Changes.  This form has language "waiving their right to a notice of deficiency."  Section 6213(a), here, prohibits the IRS from assessing prior to issuing a notice of deficiency in income tax cases.  Section 6213(d) provides that a taxpayer may waive the right to receive a notice of deficiency, thus allowing an assessment without the notice of deficiency.  This waiver is often done on the Form 870, Waiver of Restrictions on Assessment, but also from the language quoted above, may be done on the Form 4549.  See Student Edition pp. 145-146 & 334-335.

Shortly after signing the waiver, the taxpayers engaged a tax professional.  The tax professional requested audit reconsideration in a telephone call to the agent and a day later confirmed the request in a letter to the group manager.

On November 26, 2007, the IRS assessed the deficiencies, but granted the request for audit reconsideration.  As a result of the audit reconsideration, the IRS ultimately reduced the amount of the deficiencies, but by that time the taxpayers had filed amended returns and, apparently protectively, payments substantially in excess of the amounts ultimately determined to be due.  It is a little fuzzy to me precisely what happened after the assessment, but it may not be critical for the points discussed below.  What appears to be in issue in this refund litigation is the amount paid up to the amount that was not abated in audit reconsideration -- in other words the amount determined due after audit reconsideration

1. Did the taxpayers waive the right to a notice of deficiency.

Yes.  The taxpayers did sign the Form 4549 which waives the notice of deficiency in clear language.  In this regard, the Court indicated in footnote 12 that the waiver had not been improperly induced.

2.  Did the taxpayers withdraw the waiver of the notice of deficiency.

No.  The taxpayers asked for audit reconsideration which is a separate procedure.  Audit reconsideration is addressed in the text.  See Student edition p. 452.

Writing Tips from a Master (9/26/15)

This is not about tax procedure.  It is about writing and persuading.  The goal of learning tax procedure is to persuade in a tax setting.  So, I encourage students to read this blog entry about the art of persuasion and the use of hyperbole.

“If you are a lawyer, don’t write this stuff. … If you hire lawyers, don’t let them write it.”  (The Volokh Conspiracy 9/24/15), here.  The actual author of the content is Gary Kinder at Wordrake, here.

Indeed, there is another good recent offering from Gary Kinder, Once Upon a Time I Fell, and It Has Made All the Difference (Wordrake), here, where Kinder recommends the best writers' reference books.

Both are pretty short reads, entertainingly written and, well, persuasive.

Enjoy!

Are Appeals Officers Equipped and Trained to Assess Accurately the Litigating Hazards of a Case? (9/25/15)

Appeals' standard for settlement is to reflect the litigating hazards of the case.  See IRM 8.6.4.1  (10-26-2007), Fair and Impartial Settlements per Appeals Mission, here ("A fair and impartial resolution is one which reflects on an issue-by-issue basis the probable result in event of litigation"). One of the concerns expressed with that standard is that Appeals Officers are not litigators nor are most of them even lawyers.  How then do they assess the litigating hazards of a case?

Keith Fogg of Procedurally Taxing has this blog on the subject where he expresses concern:  Judging Litigation Hazards without Seeing or Following Litigation (Procedurally Taxing Blog 7/6/15), here.  Keith is a law professor now but formerly was with Chief Counsel and had considerable opportunity to observe Appeals Officers' application of the standard.  He expresses concern that Appeals may be paying less attention to insuring that Appeals Officers at least observe litigation to sharpen their skills at determining the litigation hazards.  And, of course, the Appeals Officers have difficulty assessing evidentiary and procedural problems and how they may affect the outcome of the case if it proceeds to trial.  Among the problems is credibility of witnesses.  Many cases (including the anecdote I present at the end of this blog entry) really turn on credibility, and the Appeals Officer has no way of factoring credibility into a settlement.  It is true that many revenue agents may view the witnesses as not credible, often without even interviewing them and the Appeals Officer will usually be aware of the revenue agent's assessment of credibility.  But, the Appeals Officer has no way of assessing the revenue agent's determination of credibility or, more directly,  making an independent determination of credibility to properly assess the litigating hazards.

Sheldon ("Shelly") Kay, currently with a law firm but previously with district counsel and thereafter with Appeals where he served as National Director of Appeals, does not agree with Keith.  He has written his views in a blog on Procedurally Taxing:  “Judging Litigating Hazards – Another View” (Procedurally Taxing 9/24/15), here.  Shelly makes a strong rebuttal.

I encourage tax procedure fans and particularly students in my class to read these blogs.  They are relatively short and discuss a core function of Appeals.  We will cover Appeals on October 1, and I have provided a link to this blog (with the links to the Procedurally Taxing Blogs).

Revision to Texts on Tax Shelters and Case Assignment (9/24/15)

I have assigned in Unit/Class 10 the following case (trial and appellate level opinions):  Compaq Computer Corp. v. Commissioner, 113 T.C. 214 (1999), rev’d 277 F.3d 778 (5th Cir. 2002).   I have revised the text on p. 544 of the student edition and p. 783 of the practitioner edition as follows:

Eliminate the last four sentences (beginning The Compaq case) in the carryover paragraph to p. 544 of the student edition in the paragraph beginning "Tax shelters are" of the practitioner edition.  After that elimination add the following paragraph as a new paragraph:

A good example of a classic tax shelter is Compaq Computer Corp. v. Commissioner, 113 T.C. 214 (1999), rev’d 277 F.3d 778 (5th Cir. 2002).  Please read both the Tax Court and the Appellate opinions now.  In net, a classic abusive tax feature present in the case is that, except for the benefit of the foreign tax credit for foreign taxes paid that Compaq did not bear the economic burden, the deal was a money-loser.  The Tax Court viewed the transaction as abusive and imposed penalties; the Fifth Circuit blessed the transaction.  It was a tax shelter; it was just a tax shelter that, at least the appellate court, believed – or at least held, regardless of what it believed – was legal and not abusive.  Both the Tax Court and the Fifth Circuit are good courts, with good judges having radically different views of what is an abusive tax shelter and where to draw the line.  (Note the Fifth Circuit’s opinion, however, has not worn well with time.)

For practitioners, the only footnote in the paragraph is at the end to support the statement that the Fifth Circuit decision has not worn well with time.  The footnote is:

fn E.g., Bank of N.Y. Mellon Corp. v. Commissioner, ___ F.3d ___, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 15993 (2d Cir. 2015) (“In so holding, we agree with the Federal Circuit in Salem and disagree with decisions of the Fifth and Eighth Circuits (Compaq and IES, respectively));” Lee A. Sheppard, The Fun Goes Out of Foreign Tax Credit Planning, 148 Tax Notes 1283 (Sept. 21, 2015) (hyperbolically, as is her wont, “The Second Circuit essentially reversed the Compaq and IES decisions.”)

Flora Full Payment Rule and the Rough Edges (9/17/15)

In the class we discuss the rule -- called the Flora rule -- that, in order to maintain a tax refund suit, the taxpayer generally must fully pay the amount of the assessment.  See Flora v. United States, 362 U.S. 145 (1960), here.  There are some key nuances to that rule.  I discuss those nuances in the Student edition pp. 382-384 and in the practitioner edition pp.  545-549.

One of the key nuances is that, if the assessment in question is a "divisible tax," the taxpayer may pay only the divisible amount.  Flora v. United States, p. 175 n.38 (some taxes "may be divisible into a tax on each transaction or event, so that the full-payment rule would probably require no more than payment of a small amount.”)   For example, for trust fund recovery penalty ("TFRP") based on all employees for a particular quarter or quarters, because the underlying trust fund taxes are divisible, the taxpayer contesting assessment of the TFRP, need only pay for one taxpayer for one quarter.

The divisible tax rule mitigates the full bore application of Flora, and usually makes a refund remedy within the reach of a taxpayer subject to a divisible tax assessment.  The problem comes if the tax (or penalty treated as a tax for this purpose) is so large that paying the full assessment is beyond the reach of the taxpayer.

In Diversified Group Inc. v. United States, 123 Fed. Cl. 442, 2015 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1276 (2015), here [see note below at *], appeal docketed, No. 16-1014 (Fed. Cir. October 6, 2015), the promoter of an abusive shelter and his corporation involved with the promotion of the shelter was assessed a penalty under § 6707, here, for failing to register the shelter.   The penalty was over $24 million.  The promoter paid a small amount and sued for refund, hoping to fit within the divisible penalty exception to full payment.  The Court held that the penalty was not divisible, hence requiring the promoter to pay the full penalty before pursuing a refund suit.

I do not know the financial ability of the promoter or his corporation, but for most ordinary people, paying that amount would difficult, probably impossible.

So the question is when a taxpayer is financially unable to meet the Flora full payment rule and must do so for a refund suit remedy, does he have an alternative to obtain a judicial remedy?  Of course, for the types of tax that require a predicate notice of deficiency, the taxpayer can obtain a Tax Court remedy.  But sometimes the taxpayer may not have received the notice of deficiency (the last known address issue) or the type of tax or penalty does not require a notice of deficiency (§ 6707 is one).

In a case like that, the taxpayer or the person assessed a penalty may be able to get a CDP remedy that could lead to a Tax Court review of the liability.  Keith Fogg a contributor on the Procedurally Taxing Blog discusses this issue in Another Flora Decision – Bad News for Tax Shelter Promoters Highlights Possible CDP Jurisdictional Issue (Procedurally Taxing Blog 9/15/15), here.   Keith concludes:  "It appears that they can litigate the merits of this penalty using the CDP process though the path to that answer may not be as clear as one might like and the answer appears to turn on whether the taxpayer has administratively requested penalty abatement after the assessment."  Keith does a great job of discussing his reasoning and nuance, so I strongly encourage readers to read the blog.

CDP review is discussed in the text - student edition, pp. 457-463 and practitioner edition pp. 657-667.

* This blog entry was prepared on the basis of the original opinion.  The court subsequently reissued the opinion on 9/2/15.  I have changed the citation reference and the link.  Although I have not compared to see what might have changed in the reissued opinion, I don't believe anything was changed relevant to the discussion in this blog entry.

IRS Terminates Appeals Arbitration (9/12/15)

The IRS has terminated Appeals arbitration.  Rev. Proc. 2015-44, 2015-38 IRB 1, here

I have revised the text of the pdf text books.  In the text of the student edition on p. 346 and of the practitioner edition on p. 491, the following is substitued for the paragraph commencing "The IRS has Appeals mediation."

The IRS tested appeals arbitration for 14 years, but in 2015 decided to discontinue the program.  The IRS still has an Appeals mediation program.  The Appeals mediation process, referred to as the “Post Appeals Mediation,” can be invoked in appropriate cases after the taxpayer and the Appeals Officer have failed to reach agreement as to an issue or issues, but before the Appeals Office closes the case.  Issues eligible and ineligible for mediation are listed in the IRM; thus, for example, legal and factual issues are eligible for mediation.

The significant new citation in the footnotes is Rev. Proc. 2015-44, 2015-38 IRB 1.

Payment of "Tax" After the Assessment Limitations Period Expires - Refunds (9/11/15)

Apropos to our discussions in class of the statute of limitations on assessment, in ECC 201536020 (9/4/15), here, the IRS attorney addresses the refund of taxes paid after the assessment statute of limitations expired:

A tax payment made to the Service after the expiration of the period of limitation on assessment is considered an overpayment, even if there was no tax liability. Section 6401(a) & (c). The Service has authority to refund overpayments, but only within the applicable period of limitations. Section 6402(a); Rev. Rul. 74-580. The IRM in section 25.6.1.10.2.5.6.2 (10-11-2012) Claim for an Amount Paid After the ASED, (stating "If an amended return is filed after the expiration of the period of limitations on assessment, any amount paid with that return must be refunded to the taxpayer. The taxpayer does not need to file a claim for refund in order to receive a refund of the payment made with the late filed amended return for additional tax assessment.") is discussing the need for filing a claim, not the applicability of the period of limitations. Therefore, a payment made after the ASED may be refunded to the taxpayer, but only within the limitations set forth in section 6511.

ASED in the quote means:  assessment statute expiration date and is the usual IRM term for the date the statute on assessment expires.  In the above quote, the payment was made with no timely assessment.

As indicated, the IRS can refund the overpayment resulting from payment after expiration of the statute of limitations, but the taxpayer must file the claim for refund within the refund claim statute of limitations if the IRS does not refund voluntarily.

What is the Date of Filing for Returns Solicited by and Delivered to an Agent (8/18/15)

I posted a blog on my Federal Tax Crimes Blog that may have some discussion that Federal Tax Procedure enthusiasts may find interesting.  The FTC Blog entry is:  Ninth Circuit Requires a Filing for Tax Perjury Charge (8/16/15; 8/17/15), here.  The Blog discusses the recent opinion in United States v. Boitano, ___ F.3d ___, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 14096 (9th Cir. 2015), here.

The criminal tax issue was whether filing of the tax return was an element of the crime of tax perjury, § 7206(1), here.  This invites the question of precisely what is a filing of a tax return.  In Boitano, the taxpayer signed and submitted the returns to an IRS agent not authorized to receive returns for filing.  That agent perceived irregularities in the returns and therefore did not send the returns for processing.

The Government conceded that the returns were not filed because the agent did not send the returns for processing.  The issue on appeal in Boitano was whether filing was an element of the crime of tax perjury.  The text of § 7206(1) does not require filing, but the Ninth Circuit had earlier held that filing was an element of the crime.  The Government argued, in effect, that that earlier holding was incorrect.  This panel of the Ninth Circuit held itself to be bound by the earlier precedent.  (The panel offers some interesting analysis of what constitutes a binding precedent for a three judge panel.)

The key for readers of this tax procedure blog is the question of what constitutes a filing (as opposed to the elements of the crime of tax perjury).  In many civil audits or other encounters with agents, the agents will sometimes request either delinquent original returns or amended returns.  As noted in Boitano, most agents are not authorized to receive returns for filing purposes and thus the mere act of receipt is not a filing.  The agents receiving such returns should process those returns which, when processed, would constitute a filing.  The issue practitioners face when the agent asks for the return(s) is whether, to insure that the return(s) will be treated as filed, they should (i) file the original returns in the normal manner (usually by mailing to the service center) with a copy to the agent or (ii) deliver the original return(s) to the agent with the expectation the the agent will process the return(s).  Readers interested in this issue should review the FTC Blog linked above and consider the following additional matters.

In my practice, I have been wary of giving the agent the original for processing.  I can't recall if I have ever done that.  I much prefer filing the regular way with a copy to the agent.

This issue may lurk in the OVDP where amended or delinquent returns are submitted to the OVDP group.  Are the OVDP agents authorized to receive the returns and, upon mere receipt, have them treated as filed?  I don't know the answer to the question.  Within OVDP, at least sometimes, the agents just hold the returns without processing and make an agent's report incorporating the items in the amended or delinquent returns as adjustments in the agent's report as if the amended or delinquent returns had not been filed.  If the OVDP is closed out with a closing agreement, I suppose that it does not make any difference.  But, if the taxpayer opts out, it might make a difference, particularly in the case of delinquent returns that would start the running of the statute of limitations under § 6501(c)(3), here.  I would hope that, in cases like that, the IRS would not attempt to assert that the receipt was not a filing for purposes of the civil statute of limitations.  But who knows?  In this regard, as I note in the FTC Blog entry, the Government's brief in Boitano said (in footnote 4):

   n4 * * * * Defendant’s handing the returns to Agent Connors did not constitute filing, and Agent Connor’s forwarding the form (but not the returns) to the service center did not result in the returns being filed. See 26 U.S.C. § 6501; 26 U.S.C. § 6091(b)(4); 26 C.F.R. § 1.6091-2. 

I would appreciate readers views and experiences.

Overstatement of Basis Included in Gross Income Omission for 6-Year Statute of Limitations (8/11/15)

In United States v. Home Concrete, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 1836 (2012), here, the Supreme Court held that an overstatement of basis that has the effect of reducing income is not an omission of income for purposes of § 6501(e)(1)(A).  The holding was based on the Supreme Court's prior interpretation of the statute in Colony, Inc. v. Commissioner, 357 U.S. 28 (1958), here.

In § 2005(a), the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 (P.L. 114-41), Congress legislatively overrule Home Concrete.

I have revised Example 5 in the text (Student edition, p. 138; Practitioner edition, p. 199) to provide at the end of Example 5 (after the citation to Home Concrete) the following in the text:

However, Congress legislatively overruled Home Concrete by amending § 6501(e)(1)(B) to provide that “An understatement of gross income by reason of an overstatement of unrecovered cost or other basis is an omission from gross income.”  This means that, in the foregoing calculation, the $80,000 overstatement of basis is treated as an omission of gross income, so that the omitted income is $80,000 with a resulting gross income omission of 67% and a resulting 6-year statute of limitations. fn735.
   fn735 § 2005(a), the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 (P.L. 114-41).  The effective date for the enactment is for “ the period specified in section 6501 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (determined without regard to such amendments) for assessment of the taxes with respect to which such return relates has not expired as of such date.”

Prescient History from the Records of the Constitutional Convention on the Origination Clause (8/10/15)

Note:  I have appended to the end of this blog the legal background for the brouhaha, drawn principally from the bipartisan Senate Finance Committee Report.  Readers not familiar with the background might want to reach that before wading into this discussion.

On Saturday, I blogged on a recent denial of a petition for rehearing en banc in Sissel v. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, ___ F.3d ___, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS _____ (D.C. Cir. 2015), here, denying petition for rehearing en banc from the earlier panel decision in Sissel v. U.S. Deparatment of Health and Human Services, 760 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2015), here.  That blog entry is The Constitution's Command that Revenue Bills Originate in the House - What Does It Mean? (Federal Tax Procedure Blog 8/8/15), here.

Normally, denials of rehearing (whether panel or en banc) are summary one-liners.  But the judges got stirred up in this case.  All who expressed an opinion agreed that as to the bottom-line result -- the ACA did not violate the Origination Clause.  But, the dissenting judges thought that the reasoning to the result was worthy of the Court's en banc consideration.  I won't get back into the Origination Clause again.  I did not say much about it in the prior blog and will not revisit that decision.

Something did, however, catch my eye in reading the opinions.  I am (was) a history major in college.  One of my favorite courses in college was U.S. Constitutional History, taught by Dr. George C. Rogers at the University of South Carolina.  One of the sources we used in the course was Max Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787.  These are described here as:

One of the great scholarly works of the early twentieth century was Max Farrand's The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. Published in 1911, Farrand's work gathered the documentary records of the Constitutional Convention into four volumes--three of which are included in this online collection--containing the materials necessary to study the workings of the Constitutional Convention. According to Farrand's introduction, at the close of the convention, the secretary, William Jackson, delivered all the materials to the president of the convention, George Washington, who turned these papers over to the Department of State in 1796. In 1818, Congress ordered that the records be printed. which was done under the supervision of the Secretary of State John Q. Adams, in 1819. 

Farrand's Records remains the single best source for discussions of the Constitutional Convention. The notes taken at that time by James Madison, and later revised by him, form the largest single block of material other than the official proceedings. The three volumes also includes notes and letters by many other participants, as well as the various constitutional plans proposed during the convention.

Farrand's collection of the records of the Constitutional Convention are important source materials.  Hence, it is frequently cited in cases and scholarly discussions of the convention and the meaning of the Constitution coming out of the Convention.

So, in reading the opinions on the denial of the petition for rehearing in Sissel, I was not surprised to see that both sides referred to Farrand's Records.  And, beyond that, one part of the discussion caught my attention because it sheds light on current events.  In discussing the trajectory of the Origination Clause, the majority opinion notes that the consideration of the Origination Clause was not extensive, but certain key considerations of the Clause "occurred in its [the Convention's] closing weeks, between mid-August and early September 1787."  One representative at the Convention proposed that the Origination Clause provide:  "All bills for raising or appropriating money . . . shall originate in the House of Representatives, and shall not be altered or amended by the Senate."  The majority opinion then discusses the issue this language raised (bold face supplied by JAT):

Two days later, a coalition of delegates came together to strike the Clause from the draft of the Constitution, and succeeded in doing so by a vote of 7-4. 2 Farrand's Records at 210-11 (Aug. 7, 1787); id. at 214 (Aug. 8, 1787). The Clause's opponents saw it as a needless landmine, one that could seriously weaken the new national government by investing too much power in what they viewed as the less independent, less expert, and less responsible of the two chambers of Congress, while generating pointless gridlock and mortally weakening the Senate. See, e.g., id. at 224 (Aug. 8, 1787) (summarizing objections of Pinkney, Mercer, and Madison, the last of whom "was for striking it out: considering it as of no advantage to the large States as fettering the Govt. and as a source of injurious altercations between the two Houses"); id. at 274-80 (Aug. 13, 1787) (summarizing additional objections of Wilson, Morris, Madison, Carrol, Rutledge, and McHenry to a similar version of the Origination Clause five days later).