Third Circuit Briefing Completed in Sunoco
June 30, 2010
On March 5, 2010, the government filed its reply brief in its appeal from the Tax Court’s decision in Sunoco Inc. v. Commissioner, 122 T.C. 88 (2004), thus completing the appellate briefing. The case raises a novel issue concerning the Tax Court’s jurisdiction to determine overpayment interest. Sunoco filed a petition seeking redetermination of deficiencies for its 1979, 1981, and 1983 tax years. In an amended petition, Sunoco reported that certain issues had settled but argued that the IRS had committed errors in calculating the interest on underpayments and overpayments arising out of those issues because it used incorrect starting and ending dates. The IRS moved to dismiss Sunoco’s claims for additional overpayment interest on the ground that Code section 6512 does not give the Tax Court jurisdiction to make a determination of overpayment interest with respect to overpayments not at issue in the case. The Tax Court denied the motion, holding that it had jurisdiction over Sunoco’s claims because the court would be resolving the same issues regarding starting and ending dates in connection with disputes over underpayment interest that were unquestionably before the court.
The Tax Court’s decision is a narrow one, finding that the settled principles of Estate of Baumgardner v. Commissioner, 85 T.C. 445 (1995), apply in Sunoco’s unusual circumstances because the date issues necessarily affect both underpayment interest and overpayment interest. The government, however, objects that Baumgardner is limited to underpayment interest and that Sunoco opens a Pandora’s box with broad implications by holding that section 6512 can give the Tax Court jurisdiction to resolve a dispute over overpayment interest. In the government’s view, there are no circumstances in which the overpayment jurisdiction of section 6512 can cover a claim for overpayment interest.
Because the appeal of Sunoco was delayed for years while a motion for reconsideration was pending, actual events cast some doubt on the government’s claim of broad implications. The case was decided in 2004 and in the past six years, the Tax Court has had little occasion even to cite it, much less to use it to open the gates to all sorts of taxpayer claims for overpayment interest. Nonetheless, the case has finally reached the Third Circuit, and that court will now decide whether the Tax Court overstepped its bounds in applying the principles of Baumgardner to overpayment interest in this context.
The key documents in the case are here:
Sunoco – Government 3rd Cir. opening brief
Sunoco- Taxpayer 3rd Cir brief
Sunoco- Government 3rd Cir reply brief
