IRS Issues Final Regulations on Intermountain Six-Year Statute of Limitations Issue

As we have previously discussed, the IRS sought to buttress its reliance on the six-year statute of limitations in Son-of-BOSS cases by issuing temporary regulations that interpret the term “omission” of gross income in Code sections 6229 and 6501 to include understatements of gross income attributable to overstatements of basis.  Because that interpretation strains the language of the statute and flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s decision in Colony, Inc. v. Commissioner, 357 U.S. 28, 32-33 (1958), the government has argued for application of Chevron deference to the temporary regulations.  The Tax Court has rejected that argument, and it is now pending in several courts of appeals.  Last week, the IRS issued final regulations that supplant the temporary regulations.  The final regulations have the same effective date as the temporary regulations (Sept. 14, 2009), and they are essentially the same, although they do clarify what the Tax Court majority in Intermountain found to be an ambiguity — making clear that the regulations are intended to apply to all cases for which the six-year statute of limitations remained open on the effective date.

The government is now submitting the final regulations as supplemental authority to the appellate courts considering the Intermountain issue.  (This is an example of the government’s supplemental submission, taken from the Fifth Circuit cases, with the final regulations attached.)  In the government’s view, the issuance of the final regulations strenghtens the argument for Chevron deference.  Taxpayers have objected that such deference was not owed to the temporary regulations because, among other reasons, they were temporary and issued without notice-and-comment.  Indeed, more than a quarter of the pages of argument in the government’s opening brief in Intermountain (here) were devoted to arguing that the temporary regulations were valid and entitled to deference notwithstanding the absence of notice-and-comment.  The final regulations arguably eliminate those objections, since the final regulations provided notice and opportunity for comment (even if the comments were disregarded).  Notice-and-comment aside, however, the government’s deference argument still faces the formidable obstacle of the contrary Supreme Court decision in Colony.