Taxpayer Petitions for Rehearing in Grapevine

Post by
April 15, 2011

The taxpayer has filed a petition for rehearing en banc in the Federal Circuit in Grapevine.  Because Grapevine is the first appellate decision to rely on the new regulations (see here), the petition focuses part of its argument on criticizing the Federal Circuit’s decision to defer to those regulations, especially after the same court in Salman Ranch had rejected the statutory interpretation embodied in the regulations.  The petition also argues that applying the regulations to Grapevine is unlawful, even if the regulations could be controlling in future cases, because Grapevine had already obtained a favorable judgment from the Court of Federal Claims before the regulations were promulgated.

With the courts of appeals hopelessly conflicted already on the Intermountain six-year statute of limitations issue, it is a longshot to expect the Federal Circuit to want to wade into these issues en banc.  At this point, that court most likely will be inclined to sit back and see what the Supreme Court has to say.

Grapevine – Petition for Rehearing